The Lust for power
by Kovou
Summary: When the Shaman tournament begins again Yoh and his friends may very well find more danger awaiting for them than they could possibly imagine. A random idea with original charecters. Ok Summary sucks but it gets better honest! If you read Please Review!
1. New endings and old beginnings

**New Endings and Old Beginnings  
**

"And so...it has ended." The sage voice said into the darkness. No one spoke and for a while the only sound was the crackling of the small bonfire in the middle of the clan meet's circle. At the head of assembly sat a wrinkled elderly man with long silvery hair stained a mixture of black and orange from the glow of the fire. It was a cold night yet clear as crystal; above them all the stars twinkled.

To his left a younger man with red hair sighed slightly. "A shaman king has been crowned then, master Orak?"

"No." The older man replied opening his white milky eyes. He looked heaven ward unseeing and continued. "The tournament has been postponed. For how long I can not say, the Great Spirit has not joined with a shaman, there is no king and the dark one has passed into the void."

A shrill blast of wind rocketed around the assembled people as with a rush of awe they stared at Orak.

"Zeke is dead?" Someone demanded.

Growling the youngest member of the assembled group stood. She was a teenager with long red hair and sapphire coloured eyes lit with the flames in front of her and annoyance was plain on her face.

"You dare to doubt the word of Master Orak, the chosen oracle of Avalon!" she spat at another dark haired man in his early twenties who had spoken. He too rose to his feet and squared himself off against the red head.

"You shame your master speaking out of place. It is no place for a female in a clan meet! Daughter of Jarik!"

"Peace!" Orak said calmly putting an end to the argument. As the two sat he closed his eyes and drew a shaking hand wearily over his brow and closed eyelids.

"I can not say why but I feel his soul has gone on. So yes Ledvi of Belua, Zeke the dark one has not succeeded this reincarnation. He has been disposed of by the Asakura descendant. How I do not know. "

"But Master, if Zeke is indeed dead then what you fear may very well come to pass! The dark ones arts are forever eluding our attempts to eradicate them from our Clans. If he is gone then the treaty no longer exists! If what you say is true! The rebels have no fear of retribution they will enter the tournament themselves!"

"Yes..." Orak said softly. "They will enter...they will enter and they will use these arts of the very blackest Majiks to make themselves unstoppable..."

"But if the Asakura defeated the dark one Master surely they can defeat them!" The red hair girl said loudly.

"Not if they take him first." Orak whispered then pitched forwards. The two at his side sprang upwards in time to catch him in his collapse. "The spirit world is in turmoil...and I am weak. Even as we speak the Great Spirit sends the destiny star back across the heavens. Back to summon them...back to back with destruction...back..." he lost consciousness and the clan leaders respectively took their leave.

The red haired girl hung back to watch her Master by the fire side. "What does this mean Elder Reh?"

The man who had sat on the right hand side looked upwards to the stars then out across the endless expanse of ocean surrounding their island. "It means we have very little time sister-daughter. Very little time."

Far across the world, unaware that he was the subject of much discussion on a tiny island off the Gulf of Mexico. Yoh Asakura stretched and welcomed a new day. He yawned happily as the sun crept over the horizon. Perhaps today he would spend the afternoon at the river with Morty.

"What a beautiful day." He murmured happily to himself leaning on his balcony and smiling contentedly to himself.

"Yes." A voice agreed as the spirit of a samurai swam into formation at his side and swept the land before them with hawk like alertness. "It feels good to spend these spring days with our friends does it not lord Yoh?"

"You took the words right out of my mouth Amidamaru! Heheh" Yoh agreed chuckling to himself. From somewhere inside the house a large crashing noise indicated that they were not the only ones awake.

"NOW LOOK WHAT YOU'VE DONE YOU CLUTZ!" Anna's training voice yelled causing both carefree spirits to shrink as if under a visible weight.

"Perhaps we had better see what that is about."

"Do we have to...?" Yoh asked as tears formed picturing the multiple possible explanations for the noise. Most of which included a new type of training equipment. He pushed away from the railing however and crept to the stairs.

At the bottom amidst the remains of a sliding door lay Rio. "I'm sorry Miss Anna...my hand slipped." He seemed dazed as he lay amongst the splintered wood. Tokageroh waved a fan over his shamans head. "Get up Rio!" he pleaded. The twosome at the top of the stairs frowned at each other in time to hear another voice say softly.

"That looks a rather deep cut Anna, It may need a suture. If you would just...hold still...for a moment...let me look at it." Faust's arm came into view at the bottom of the stairs trying to desperately hold onto something. That something glared daggers at Yoh freezing him to the spot.

"YOH, AMIDAMARU GET YOUR SORRY BUTTS DOWN HERE!" Anna yelled. She held a sushi knife in one hand stained crimson while the arm Fust was trying to pull towards him was clenched into a ball dripping red onto the tiled floor.

"Perhaps we should NOT see what that is about..." The samurai corrected.

"Uh-hu..." Yoh agreed as he hurried away from the scene knowing that he would pay for his tactical retreat later. Hopefully much later!

The week progressed a great deal like any other since the end of the shaman tournament. It all really seemed like a distant dream and yet not. Their friendships were living testament to that and had endured even though they had all gone back to their normal every day lives. Anna, when not forcing them to run marathons each night to stay in shape, watched TV in the den while Faust and Eliza did their own thing.

The sound of light organ music reached his ears and he glanced upwards at the tiled roof above him knowing the source of it. Faust and his wife were sitting in their usual spot on the roof enjoying the night air too. Yoh smiled thinking of the time each of their group had met. It seemed like at one point or another they had all been enemies.

And for once...Yoh thought as he sat looking at the sky the sounds of his friends echoing through his memories that did not seem like a bad thing. If enemies truly did hate one another then in their case it was a good thing. Hate was a passionate emotion and passion was still passion he guessed. Once they got to know one another it had turned easily from hate and jealousy into love and loyalty- like snow melting to water.

He had wanted to be shaman king to live an easy life...and though he hadn't managed to get to that goal the journey had taught him more than any other training in his short life had done. That if an easy life existed it would be much akin to the one he was living now.

A brilliant burst of light above him shook him from his pensive state as the night sky lit up with a shower of meteors. The beginning of summer and, through the midst of them, the brightest arc of light followed by a chorus of chiming as the oracle bells in the house echoed the sight. The signal they had been waiting for.

Despite the fact that it was true their original adventure had ended, another was about to begin.


	2. Of things gone and things yet to pass

**Of things gone, and things yet to pass**.

Far across the world a young woman stood on the shore of a beach. Her soaking red hair tumbling around her face as tears rushed to join the salty expanse of water before her reminding the sea of her misery. Smoke rose steadily from the middle of the ocean seemingly from nowhere.

As her clan home was being burned removing all traces of it and she had struggled to save her master's body from the inferno. To save his soul from the vampires who sought it. The memory burned against her heart wrenching and clawing as if it were some wild creature trapped there. She would never be able to let it go.

Turning she and her companions hurried from the beach and into the city. She followed without emotion her thoughts clouded with darkness as she tried to save herself from being overwhelmed.

They were running, towards the shore and the only means of escape from the island. The boy from the other clan in front and her uncle an elder from her own clan racing at his side as she struggled to support the sagging form of her master.

His breathing was laboured and she could feel the furious thudding of his heart in her back where his chest was pressed against her. Blood congealing from a wound on her calf trickled into the earth leaving a trail they would undoubtedly follow.

Behind them they could hear the noises of screams as mages, shamans and spirits were consumed by the unnatural force that attacked their sanctuary. They had been arrogant Reh had told her that evening so long ago when they had found out the dark one had died. Arrogant to assume that Zeke was their only worry and arrogant to think that simply removing themselves from all humanity and sticking to the clans would ever prevent them from succumbing to the fate of most others of their kind.

Shaman were by nature not a peaceful people. They warred and fought and the tournament was simply another sign of the fact that many of them had lost their way amongst the humans polluting them. But the solution had not been to destroy them as Zeke had wanted but rather to remove themselves from temptation.

Her ancestors had secured the pact with Zeke to be left autonomous and to their own devices on the understanding they would never rise up against him nor would they lend him their support. Now with him gone there was no fear of retribution and the clan faced its first threat from within for over a thousand years.

To think that it would happen in her life time, that she would live to see the end of her way of life was unthinkable and she shivered realising how frightened the prospect made her. The lust was on the rebels now and they would not stop like a rising tsunami until they had swallowed everything in their path.

The memory burned within her "Leave me!" the old man had coughed as they stopped near the shore to catch their breath.

"No Master we cannot leave you here! They will claim you!" she had said terrified as the sounds of screams echoed towards them.

He ignored her and turned his blind eyes to the panting males by her side. "Ledvi, Reh. Take her and go you must leave me...you know your duty as Protectors you must go to the Asakura and prevent them from claiming him. He must not be taken. If he indeed did defeat the dark one then there may yet be hope. "

Reh had stared defiantly back for a moment. "Master..." he asked almost pleadingly.

"Even now the destiny star travels the sky. The Great Spirit calls." The old man continued. "We were fools to think we could not be involved. Power will always attracts those of a weak mind and with its influence others are easily led astray. I know not how these arts came to be here amongst the clans but we must hurry to rectify it before our mistake causes the destruction of us all!"

He coughed then in her memory staining the sleeve of his snowy robes cerise. "Do as I say and leave me. I am old, I am injured and I am weak. I can not leave the island and my soul is weary of this world. Go I say and fulfil the duty. We were wrong to accept the treaty with the dark one...regardless of what happens now it has brought our way of life's end. "

Orak struggled to take a breath he fumbled for the people near to him and clasped them each on the hand. "Ledvi may the foresight of your totem protect you Shaman of Belua... go in peace. Reh my son... may wisdom reach you on the swift paws of the black wolf totem...go in peace."

Finally he placed a hand on the red haired teens head and made a sign with his fingers in the air "My apprentice and Daughters-Daughter. I have taught you all I could in your short life now there is time for no more. Take from me then thy birth right..." He wiped his hand over the trickle of blood creeping down his face then pressed the pad of thumb into the centre of her forehead, directly over the spiritual third eye. She could still feel the pressure there. ".. And go in peace, Mage and Shaman of Avalon."

Her hands clenched as she saw again the memory of her grandfather with the last of his power and strength release his own into the heavens and enter the void. Then the sounds had gotten louder and the three of them had stood. Taking one last look at the body they spirited into the night to the mainland knowing they could never return. Part of her wishing she too had perished. For now she was a fully fledged shaman a sign she had reached womanhood and yet it was no cause for celebration.

Her thoughts shifted slightly and a new scene seemed to unfold. Not a memory but a vision of one. Fearful eyes stared up at her from a dark pit in the earth. "Mosuke?" it asked. She frowned down confused at them. An aura of pain and sorrow emanated from the darkness then it faded to nothingness.

She dry retched slightly as the powerful memory released her and sat bolt upright. Above her the flickering light of the moon illuminated the freight cart and she remembered where she was. Safe on a train heading east, she pushed the rough cloth away and forced her dark thoughts down.

"You weren't asleep. It was a very dangerous thing for Master Orak to do." A voice said softly from the dark. Her neck snapped to it and peered fearfully a moment before the figure of a dark haired male in a tattered and stained white shirt and blue trousers with a sandy coloured robe swathed around him came into focus. She glared at him hating every inch of his stupid face from fauxhawk hair to sandals.

"It is common for the recipient to fall into a trance of sorts having been given the sign of Erus. We made it as far as the bus station before you succumbed. I'm surprised you lasted as long as you did. Did you dream?" He asked

She frowned and looked away from him to her uncle who lay asleep nearby. "I do not wish to talk about it. Least of all with you" She finally spat.

He sighed exasperated and reached a hand up began stroking the air above his shoulder. At once it swarmed into a large bird of prey with golden plumage, His spirit guardian. She felt the weight against her spiritually that signified her own was also nearby but did not call him into formation.

"The attack was well planned." Ledvi said changing tactics he looked out the open door of the carriage as above the destiny star shot across the sky. She scowled at him.

"Just because Master Orak assigned us the same quest Ledvi of Belua doesn't mean that I like you or that wish to hold conversation with you. My feelings are unchanged! "She turned her back on him and bringing her knees up rested her chin there watching the star that called the shaman back to fight.

Behind her Ledvi tugged on a circle of silver on his hand. "I am sorry you know...for all those years of torture we must have put you through. It was unseemly I suppose for Orak to choose a girl to be his apprentice when so many others of the clans wanted to obtain the position. "

"I cannot help my birth or my gender. There are plenty of female shamans in the clans and in the world and probably more other users of the arcane arts."

"True." He agreed. "I am sorry however that as an apprentice I gave you such a hard time."

"And as a master?" she asked arching an eyebrow. He chuckled lightly.

"Old habits die hard I guess." He slid closer to her. "Are you afraid?" he asked.

"Yes." She said. "I'm afraid of being out here in the human's world and I'm afraid of other shaman and of being followed by the pressures."

"You are a master yourself now and even if it was gifted to you earlier than meant in time you will develop to your full potential. You are only seventeen."

She smiled ruefully without the emotion reaching her eyes. "I'm not a powerful shaman. I was always better at the physical side of our training and the arcane arts and in those I'm still untested."

"We'll find a way of making it work." He said and put an arm out to comfort her. She pulled away.

"You presume too much Ledvi of Belua." She said with finality ending the conversation.

She got up and crossed to her uncle's side lay down by stared at the stars. The task ahead seemed so simple and daunting at once. Finding the Asakura wouldn't be easy they would have to begin by going to his home and hope that they were not turned away.

"What did you see in your dream?" Reh asked quietly. So he was awake. She glanced sideways at her red-haired uncle and said so Ledvi couldn't hear.

"There was a small boy. In darkness in a place I've never seen before. He was afraid of me." She considered and when he said nothing in return focused on her breathing until the rocking rhythm of the train lulled her to a fitful sleep.

Far behind as the meteor shower ended and the true blackness of night descended on the word a hand shot out of the surf on the beach a few miles south of Miami. It raked its heavy blue finger nails across the sand as from the water three people emerged crawling into human form it seemed as a swirl of spiritual energy evaporated from their bodies Shell necklaces around their necks glowing eerily in the light. The first held three golden feathers in his fist his eyes glowing a dull red the colour of spilled blood he smiled a toothy grin and glanced behind him at the home he had now forsaken then forwards towards the scent of the people he now hunted.

He tilted his head and sniffed greedily in the salt air. "Come...the night is young and there are many more souls ripe for the taking."


	3. Cursed to walk the desert alone

**Cursed to walk the desert alone.**

#and so it had begun again. The shaman fight. Right now as I type this...oh Yeah I nearly forgot. This time I brought my new and improved laptop with me. So that I can make a sort of diary entry of all the things that are going on in the shaman fight and Dobie Village. Neat idea Hu? Yoh thought so and Mosuke did too so that settled it. It cost a lot of my allowance though but that's ok I guess.

Anyway...he he I guess I'm getting ahead of myself. Right now as I type this we're camped out in the desert...retracing our steps to the village. We have a full three months to get there again and since it's hard to remember the exact place Len had his private jet land the same place as it crashed last time. So that we could re-trace the Path the others took! Heh it's like a huge road trip.

Just me and Yoh and Mosuke and Amidamaru of course with the guys. Trey and Rio still argue and Len's still a bit of a stick in the sand but he comes in handy I guess to deal with Joco's bad jokes. Faust doesn't say much like normal but I know that's just how he is now. And the best part! I am officially a shaman! I mean I'm not as strong as Yoh and the others and I'm not in the tournament. That doesn't mean I get out of Anna's training though...#

Morty sighed a huff of air as his sore muscles remembered the last session Anna had put him and Mosuke through. It had been...well Anna like. He glanced around at their makeshift camp. A sort of circle of five tents. One the largest by far was purple and couple most likely have easily slept four of their group. It belonged to Len who on the first night making camp after disembarking the plane had unceremoniously thrown Morty out telling him he wouldn't share.

The other tents weren't large Trey and Joco, Rio and Lyserg and Yoh and Anna had one between each pair and as small as he was there was not much room there for him. He has spent the majority of the night curled into a small ball on his sleeping bag listening to the sounds around him.

Feeling slightly chilled he had shuddered and decided to go to the bathroom to ease his discomfort.

"Something wrong Morty?" his laptop asked breaking into his memory. Mosuke materialised near the fire and raised an eyebrow.

"Hah no I'm fine." The short shaman replied with a smile.

"Mmm he is right you have been very quiet these last few evenings." Faust said in his soft eerie way causing both Mosuke and Morty to twitch nervously.

He turned his head slowly to the direction the necromancer's voice emanated from and found himself the subject of the terrible scrutiny of both the mad doctor and his ghost nurse at the same time.

Faust lay to Morty's right on his front in the sand, a book sporting the title: '1000001 Travel complaints and their cures', in his hands. He peered at the little guy without blinking as if searching for something. Finally he looked back to his book and flipped a couple of pages back. After another second's hesitation Eliza did too.

Morty let out the breath he had been holding. The guy still scared him slightly, especially lately. He quivered as his mind drifted back to that first night again. He had gone to the toilet, and something he wasn't sure what had caught his attention. With the Ghosts on night watch duty he assumed that it was simply one of them passing and dismissed the thought before returning unhappily to his sleeping bag near the doused camp fire.

He had yawned and was nearly there when something had grabbed him from behind. His short stature did not lead well to attacks from anything taller and that was most things. He had yelled loudly as protest and struggled madly before a latex covered hand had clamped down over his mouth and another had held him in a gentle but still vice like grip across something that rose and fell, a chest.

"Shhh." A silky voice said in his ear. "We don't need to wake the others..."

Inside he remembered feeling something rise like bile as if he had been waiting for this day to eventually come and knew his life was about to end. "mausmp!" he had exclaimed recognising the voice his heart thundering and spots dancing before his eyes. He knew the man had him and that it was dark no one would see. He could feel the grip twist slightly as Faust responded to his captives racing heart. Morty hyperventilated. They began to move quickly and...

The next thing he became aware of sitting, a soft squishy comfy thing under him and being surrounded by canvas. A small camp lantern lit the dome and he had felt a hand rubbing his back.

"Breathe Morty...that's right. Nice deep breaths."

"Faust..." he had responded weakly realising he was inside the necromancer's tent.

"Gott sei Dank..You gave me quite the scare little guy. What were you doing out there?" The German doctor asked peering at him intently in the dim light.

"Gave you the scare! You nearly gave me heart failure grabbing me like that!" He had yelled indignantly and watched the man smile slightly.

"Nearly but not entirely." He had replied happily. " And I will thank you to keep your voice down. As I said before the others are asleep." Mort remembered blushing then and could almost feel the heat of it return to his face.

"I needn't have grabbed you so had you not struggled as much. Really what could you have thought I was going to do to you?" Faust asked looking innocent.

"I don't know you scared me!" Morty had replied returning his voice to a whisper continued. "Len threw me out of his tent I didn't have anywhere else to sleep. "

"Ah sehe ich..." he looked ponderous. " Never mind you shall share with me!" he had declared deciding the matter and it had stuck.

He smiled slightly in a dazed sort of way reminiscent.

"Perhaps you are coming down with something." Faust said offhandedly in the present, dragging him back. He peered up at Morty again, mouthed the word ' panic attack' a couple of times and ran his long gloved index finger down some list on his page seeming to dismiss each one as he went.

"Eliza my sweet remind me to make a note to observe this."

"Yes darling." The blond Ghost replied happily and the two forgot about the Morty mystery for the moment seemingly content with staring happily at one another in the fire light.

"Hhaha" Morty managed feeling somewhat emotionally drained. He went back to typing. It seemed strange he thought after all they had been through together he could not help feel a small bit of terror for what the crazed blond had put him through. He had since become friends of a sort with Faust but only because the older man had kind of latched onto him last year during the tournament. Literally and he guessed he really wasn't all that bad a guy.

He had a true heart Anna had said but to that small part of his that did not trust all that meant was that the maniacal medical minded shaman wouldn't have to come take his.

Yoh's advice had been to release his fear entirely but he didn't feel wholly healed enough to let it go. Like so many other things in his life he held onto it to remind him that there was a price for living with and being a shaman and that he had nearly paid dearly for it. It was dangerous to have friends.

With a sigh Morty closed his laptop and smiled sadly at Mosuke. "I think I'm going to take a walk." He told the assembled personnel. And careful not to trip over the guy ropes of the tent picked his way out of camp and towards the nearest trail. He had intended to explore it with Yoh and Amidamaru tomorrow but they wouldn't mind. Besides he reasoned he wouldn't go too far.

As he climbed the gradient a light breeze lifted his hair from his face and he smiled at it enjoying the sensation. Blowing away some cobwebs his grandfather had said long ago. Sweat trickled down his back as he finally paused and took stock of his surroundings. The rock face was a strange hue of red like toffee and below him stretched the seemingly endless expanse of desert they had already crossed. On the other side was sand dunes and more mountains and he sighed somewhat forlornly thinking of the fact he would have to trek down there again and then back up at some point to find the trail north.

He sat on a large rock and rubbed his calf muscles. Everything was quiet in this part of the world thought Morty looking above him as the sky turned dull orange. And so warm.

"What are you thinking Morty?" Mosuke asked squinting above him as if trying to see what his partner saw. The small shaman smiled at his guardian ghost.

"I was just thinking that it is still so warm but when the sun goes down how cold it will get. I hope we can get back to camp by then..."

"I should think so. " The sword smith mused. "We have been walking for some time and we left the train two hours ago or so but I am sure we can find the right train down."

Morty nodded allowing the words to comfort him then froze in fear. "Wait...what! We left the trail!" he asked "Why didn't you tell me!" He cast around for something that looked familiar to him there was the desert...there was the rocks but it all looked the same. He couldn't even see the camp.

"You seemed deep in thought I did not wish to disturb you." Mosuke tried to explain looking sheepish.

Morty hit the palm of his hand off of his forehead and wiped it down over his eyes. "Are you telling me we are LOST IN THE MIDDLE OF THE MOUTAINS WITHOUT WATER OR FOOD AND WITH NIGHT FALLING!" He huffed after his outburst.

The Ghost smith waved his hands tears streaming down his face. "It'll be ok we'll find our way back!" He cast around himself too for a moment. "Look the sun always rises in the east right and sets in the west so we are going..." he turned around on the spot silently as more and more seconds passed by. He shrank to hover above the stone his partner sat on his head hung low.

"Amidamaru was always better at this sort of thing than I. "he confided "What a terrible guardian Ghost I am, I have lost my way endangered my shaman and condemned him to certain death. I should have stuck with beating metal in the afterlife!" he wailed

Morty heaved a sigh. "Aww Mosuke I'm sorry I didn't mean to upset you. I think you are a great guardian Ghost." He smiled and patted the air that ought to be Mosuke's arm.

"You really think so?" The smith sniffed.

"Sure I do, you and I are a team and we'll get out of this mess. Besides the others will come looking for us and if I Know Yoh and Amidamaru they wont stop until they finds us."

They sat for a couple of moments watching the sun climb steadily lower. "Come then" Mosuke said "We would be foolish to stand here we should find shelter."

From above the duo two pairs of eyes watched them carefully. One sapphire blue pair looked hungrily down at them while the other, a shade of the deepest black remained emotionless.

"They will die." A distinctively male voice said and the sapphire eyes constricted slightly in agreement. Below Morty stopped and turning looked up at them. He blinked and the eyes were gone leaving him with a very unnerved feeling that he was being watched.

Back at the affection ally, if not cleverly, named Camp Shaman. Yoh sat at the mouth to his and Anna's tent and poked a stick into the camp fire. He stared directly into the flames. It was getting dark now. The wind was picking up and a bitingly cold air had arrived from the north causing them to pull warmer clothes on or to huddle closer to their camp fire.

Anna sat nearby flickering through a magazine wrapped in her sleeping bag. Her eyes were not flowing across the page indicating she was reading but rather stared at it then flicked the page hard as if the glossy paper had offended her with its contents.

"He should be back by now." Yoh said again poking his stick. He glanced up at the group and felt slightly relived to see that the carefree ease that had accompanied his last comment as such had evaporated.

Len leaned against The Log by his tent across from Yoh and stared back at him across the fire. Both of them locked gazes then turned to look at the empty patch of sand to Yoh's right where Morty's laptop and backpack still sat in front of the tent he was sharing with Faust.

"I am sure that Morty did not go too far master Yoh." Rio said his tone a would be light sound that was only betrayed by the fact he was slicing the herbs for Anna's tea with slightly more force than necessary. To his left Trey and Lyserg looked worriedly at the fire too.

Faust sat on the log by Len staring off into the night saying nothing.

"Yoh!" A voice called down breaking the silence. The camp was lit with colour for a moment as the returning spirit forms materialised next to their respective partners. Amidamaru shook his head sadly.

"Bason and I circled the entire west edge for many miles we can see n sigh of Morty or Mosuke."

"Yeah and Mic and I climbed north we found his trail but it vanished from the path some distance up and we weren't able to find it again. " Tokageroh said he hung his head.

Yoh stood and patted sand from his trousers. "Then there's only one thing for it we're going to have to go look for him ourselves."

"It's getting dark." Anna said looking up at Yoh.

"And the temperature's dropping dude its going to be a cold one tonight." Trey interrupted glancing towards them and receiving a glare from the medium.

Yoh blinked expectantly at them for support then flared at them. "So what do you suggest we do? Leave him out there all on his own in the dark?" he demanded.

"Yoh..."Lyserg said in his calm manner. " That's not exactly what anyone meant..."

"Well what. Exactly! Did you mean Lyserg?" Yoh flared his pupils constricting, a sure sign that he was angry.

"Ahh...what I mean is we should go..." the green hair shaman stuttered.

"Yoh we know you are worried but don't take it out on Lyserg you know what's not what he meant. " Len said. His eyes had closed and he leaned further back against the log. " Unless you want to go stumbling blindly around in the dark and risk falling off the cliff yourself we should get some sleep and send a search party out first thing at dawn."

"Yes."Anna agreed. "That way some of us can stay behind here in case Morty makes his way back and not worry about the others getting lost. We can follow the trail as far as Morty's sent goes then use Lyserg's dowsing to follow wherever he went after that."

"Exactly." Len agreed

"But what about Morty! He could be eaten by muskrats or something." Yoh said clenching his fists.

"The little guy is small but I doubt he's in as much danger as you seem to be imagining him to be Yoh." The Chinese Shaman scoffed.

"How small is he?" Joco began in an ill conceived attempt to lighten the mood. He was silenced quickly with a single uppercut to the chin. Len, now standing gently pushed the comedian away from his tent with his foot and bushed himself down.

"Ow that hurt!"

"Tell someone who cares." Anna growled. "Get some perspective Joke boy Morty's missing this isn't the time for jokes."

He hung his head and rubbed his chin. " Sheesh I was only trying to help.. i want to find him too you know" he muttered

"I don't like it." Yoh said looking at the ground.

"Let's put it to a vote then." Len continued. "All those in favour of setting out into the dark and getting lost raise your hands...now those in favour of going at dawn."

Six hands rose slowly into the air. Len's, Lyserg's Anna's, Faust's, Trey's and Joco's. Rio kept his down and frowned at them all in his best shame on you expression. At his side Tokageroh raised his hand with trepidation.

"Put your hand down Judas." Rio hissed at him.

"Good." Anna said "motion carried besides I'm tired."

"That settles it. " Len said standing and crawling into the mouth of his tent. "Let's get some sleep."

Yoh frowned and looked across at the trail entrance with a deep sigh he relaxed his shoulders. "I'm sorry buddy you'll have to hold your own for a while."

Amidamaru watched as the shaman sank back down by the fire and began poking it again clearly with no intention of sleeping while his friend was missing.

"I may not like it but we are forced to agree with the others." He said. "It would be unsafe and unwise to set out to track him now. We would serve him better by getting enough rest to ensure that we find him tomorrow as soon as it is possible. Besides Morty is smart enough to find shelter on his own and he is not alone Yoh Mosuke will protect him."

He made a sort of shrugging in an I hope so gesture and continued to poke the fire. A hand on his shoulder made him look up. Faust walked by and kneeling put Morty's laptop back in his back pack and zipped it closed. He then carefully set it aside.

"Have faith in Morty Yoh. We will find him."


	4. Eyes in the Darkness

Disclaimer: I do not own Shaman king or any of the resulting characters.

Author's note: Lol is anyone reading this? If so please Review! I would really like any comments or suggestions ^-^

**Eye's in the darkness.**

The chattering sound was putting him off Morty decided. He scuffed his foot into the sand under him and kicked slightly as a small shiver ran through him. The night had taken a turn for the worse if that was even possible; they had walked in a complete circle going no where in search of somewhere to take cover until daylight but to no avail.

Heading as they were to where the rock face rose had proved to be more difficult that he would have anticipated. But despite the fact it was surely getting them more lost he could remember reading that there were some very interesting caves found in this part of the world. Hopefully there would be one he could wait in and maybe build a small fire...

Morty glanced around him again seeing nothing but the stained blue colour of rocks and dirt in the twilight. It was unlikely that there would be wood nearby. The air was bitingly cold and the higher they went the thinner and colder it seemed to get. He took a deep breath to release some of the pressure from his protesting lungs and regretted it immediately as a coughing fit took him.

By his side the dark-haired floating spirit of Mosuke reached out worriedly towards him. "I think we should hurry. It is only going to get colder."

Morty wheezed a moment then nodded. "What is that sound? Are there rattle snakes?" he whimpered slightly and stared down for anything suspiciously rope looking.

The Ghost seemed even more worried by this statement. "No Morty that noise is the sound of your teeth clattering together." He admitted.

The news of this seemed to daze the small shaman and he slowed in his forced march to consider it. Again that same sensation of knowing his death was coming gripped him and he huffed slightly. "I'm going to freeze to death out here..." he said in wonder at hoe calm he felt.

"I will not allow that to happen." Mosuke promised ushering his shaman forwards. "Even if I must combine with you and forge us both a shelter somehow until your body is too tired to retain spirit control."

Morty laughed slightly with little humour. "I haven't got my spirit medium..." he said thinking wistfully of his laptop.

Mosuke hung his head. "Perhaps the laptop is not the best of choices for a medium." He admitted.

"No maybe you're right." Morty agreed as he pulled his sweater closer around his small body and shivered as a ghostly whisper of wind blew overhead. A howl echoed in the distance and was followed by an eerie cry that caused Morty's hair to stand on end.

"What was that!" he demanded edging closer to the side of the rock and away from the edge and desert below where the sound had emanated from.

"It sounds like a hawk or another bird of prey hunting..." Mosuke said tilting his head to listen closely. Morty looked above him for some sign of the bird and froze suddenly paralysed by fear. Those eyes again...the ones he had seen previously blinked down at him huge and black like shining coal stones. A soft growl echoed down towards him and he felt his blood chill.

"Mosuke!" he yelled scrambling away quickly his foot tapped something hollow sounding and then with an explosion of dust dirt and debris he felt his sense of equilibrium vanish and he fell down, down, down.

##

Some distance away still sitting at the fireside Yoh's head nodded as sleep threatened to overtake him. By him Faust sat reading his book. He glanced up at the younger male and his lips twitched in a slight smile. He rose and bringing a blanket from the log he sat on draped it over Yoh.

A short time later the sleeping shaman moaned amidst his fitful dreams "Morty..." Yoh muttered his brow furrowed. "Look out Morty..." He twitched slightly in the sand and both Faust and Eliza looked up from 'Poisons, venoms and toxins' to observe him.

"MORTY!" Yoh yelled suddenly sitting bolt upright. He breathed hard a moment clutching his heart the most horrible feeling that he had been falling down a damp pit into blackness. At the bottom lay Morty's mangled body his eyes rolled back into his head and foam of some sort covering his mouth as he twitched and then fell still. A pair of black-eyed something's had watched and Yoh had woken with a start.

Amidamaru blinked in concern and waited for the boy to get a grip on himself. "Are you all right?" he asked.

"Yeah...yeah." Yoh breathed as he realised he was not wherever Morty was. "Just a nightmare...I can't wait much longer Amidamaru, something doesn't feel right. Morty's in trouble I can sense it. "

"Dawn is only two hours or so away." The samurai said quietly. "It won't be long before we can set out and find him."

"Yeah..." Yoh said sadly as he looked up at Faust still watching him. "I just hope we aren't too late by then."

##

The first thing he became aware of was pain. His lungs ached in dissent as he tried to force air back into them. Air that seemed clogged with dust and set him coughing. His back ached and his left leg felt wet and heavy. Lifting his head he swayed slightly even in his horizontal position.

"Morty!" he heard the word and did not fully understand it. At the back of his head through the pain there a small voice told him that he recognised the sound. It was who he was. He was Morty.

"Mosuke?" He managed weakly. High above him the night sky twinkled the face of his guardian Ghost whirled around like a carousel worry etched into every line on his face. He looked so much older Morty mused.

"What happened? Where are we?" he words felt right but thick under his tongue as he spat them out. He didn't feel cold now at least and felt his eyes droop heavily.

"No Morty you must remain conscious. We are at the bottom of some kind of pit in the earth. You fell."

Morty forced himself to focus on the words again. "When?" he asked

"Not long half an hour has passed you have been in and out of consciousness...I wanted to leave you and find the others to bring help but I feared what would happen if you woke to find me missing." The smith explained. "Can you move?"

Morty pushed himself up weakly his head threaten to split open and his stomach heaving in protest. His left leg lay trapped under a small pile of rubble. He pulled and gasped in pain. It was stuck. The effort left him shaking and he lay back into the mess of earth. "No." He said.

Mosuke looked determined then. "I will go and find help Morty. It will not take me long by myself to find camp and bring our friends to rescue you."

A small edge of panic bloomed in Morty. How could he suggest that he leave him here all alone? But at the same time he recognised the severity of the situation he needed help and quickly. Simply staying here until his friends found him would not suffice. Not now.

"You should be safe here." Mosuke continued. "There is a small cave that extends that way." He said pointing to a crack nearest them. "I believe that we could get out through there but if you cannot walk it would be futile to try. You are much safer staying here."

The young shaman nodded once and closed his eyes as his ghost rose slightly out of the pit. "I will be swift Morty. "He promised and with one last guilty look back he shot away like a supernatural rocket Leaving Morty quite alone.

The silence was almost crushing. The sounds of the night much too faint above him, he cast his gaze around the small cave in sight to keep his mind working and noticed that it was indeed bigger than he thought. A crack like an upside down letter V led into a larger tunnel and a deeper darkness beyond it. The way out Mosuke had said. He sighed and looked above him again. If he was taller he could have easily climbed out once his head had stopped spinning. He sat up and tried to push away the rubble trapping him there.

High above a figure stood watching the small boy's attempt to free himself, sapphire coloured eyes burned under a deep green hood as the figure stood with a staff of some kind in their hand. A small golden ring glinting in the darkness caught Morty's attention he looked up and blinked fearfully at the person.

"Mosuke?" he asked hopefully knowing that it wasn't Mosuke. A soft growl echoed behind the figure and a huge bulking shape blotted out some of the light streaming down. With a rush of air he watched as both shapes leapt into the hole and landed nimbly a few meters away from him. He shivered his teeth chattering again and the waves of unconsciousness threaten to take him.

"Quisnam es vos? Quis specialis operor vos habitum mihi?" A soft voice asked and a hand reached out to him as he sat clutching the rock on top of the pile of rubble. He lifted it and threw it as hard as his limited strength would allow. The figure shrank backwards.

"My guardian Ghost will be here with all my friends any second." He gasped weakly in warning.

The growl again as the creature by her padded forwards on huge paws. It breathed close to him and he shrank back with a small whimper. "Please..." He pulled back as far as he could and gasped as a spasm of pain shot through him again this time from somewhere under him. It felt like a bite.

From inside he could feel something alien ebbing through his blood.

"Operor non permoveo quod ego mos succurro vos!" the voice said again. It turned to the creature and said "sto tergum vos es vix him."

The creature growled again and said much to Morty's surprise in a lightly accented voice he understood. "Scaring him or not he must be moved despite his injuries he has just been bitten by a scorpion in his attempt to escape you."

The figure took a dramatic breath and looked back t Morty the expression in the eyes softening. He recognised the look it was one reserved for people horrifically injured. He struggled to move feeling a wave of nausea overcome him.

Within moments of her guide's proclamation the small boy began to convulse tearing the exposed skin on his trapped leg against the rocks. Yellow foam poured from his mouth and she hurried to push the stones from him.

Her hood falling back in the effort and her loose red hair tumbling out. She heaved and clawed at the dirt.

"Hurry Déjà otherwise he will pass into the void." The creature said as he too began to scratch at the earth. When he was free the creature used his nose to turn him over and his parent pulled the boy's shirt up a round red mark showed where the scorpion had attacked. The insect was nowhere to be found now however and as the boy convulsed the girl looked helplessly at her guide.

"What do I do?" she asked falling into the language he had used.

"Slice the puncture and pull the venom out using our furyoku. You won't get it all it spreads through his blood like a fast flowing rapid but you will get enough to stop it and brew some Actena herbs from your pouch to combat the rest."

From the belt at her side she pulled a silver handled curved knife and created an X shaped incision across the swelling she placed her hand over it and pulled upwards with her energy. Some resistance made her frown but after a moment it began sucking a slightly green tinged liquid up from his blood. She continued drawing until only red blood escaped.

The boy seemed peaceful now his small body did not tremble. She turned him and saw his eyes had rolled back into his head. In fright she pressed her ear to his chest and listened to him breathe. He was still alive. Straightening she swept back down the tunnel deeper into the cave holding him.

###

As the fire stuttered and burnt through the last of the dry logs from her pack Déjà found herself feeling homesick. She sniffed the earthy smell of wood smoke and marvelled for the tiny life giving light that in most places could mean the difference between life and death.

Even now the night wore closer to dawn and the chill reached its peak. She shivered and winced as the motion caused her pain in her side. She reached up and pressed a hand against the broken ribs there and willed them to stop hurting. The small clay pot sitting in the heart of the fire drew her attention as it bubbled and frothed and filled the air with a new smell almost metallic.

She heaved herself up from her crouched position and taking the pot carefully from the flames poured a steaming purple liquid into a carved wooden cup. It filled the cup and she placed it back near the fire to stay warm.

"You should use the leaves as well." A voice said from close by causing her to look up at it questioningly. "Yes I know." She bowed her head and returned to her work.

The owner of the voice was a bulky hulking creature about five feet in length and two foot six inches or so in height at its broad shoulders. It had fur and was currently curled around a deathly pale figure wrapped in his partners green travelling robe.

The girl tucked a strand of her red hair out of her eyes and approached a small bowl of steaming purple leaves in her hand and a strip of cloth from the bottom of her shirt in the other. She knelt by the pale figure and gently untucked him. He moaned in his sleep but did not wake. She watched him quietly for a second then pushed him over onto his side.

Her guide brought his snout down and manoeuvred his jaw over the little person's side to hold him in place as she taking a wad of the purple goo began dabbing it into a large x shaped cut on his back. It hissed slightly as it seeped into the wound, she continued to apply it until the bowl was empty and a thick poultice covered the area. She wrapped the strip of cloth over it keeping it in place and tied the makeshift bandage in a knot.

"Are you done?" her guide said through his clenched teeth, his black nose wrinkled. "That smells revolting...I don't think I can stand to hold him still much longer." He said. She smiled in return.

"I am done release him." And carefully she manoeuvred him back and covered him again with the robe. She returned to the fire and setting the bowl down stirred the warm pot of purple liquid with a carved spoon. It was strange that this was how her vision came to pass the scared child she had found seemed older than she had thought he would be and he had clearly stated to her in warning that his guardian ghost would return for him with his friends.

She huffed and re-added the cooling liquid to the pot and stirred again until it began to turn pink. Satisfied she sat back on her heels and glanced over to her guide.

"I do not understand this at all. If he has his own guardian why was he alone?" she asked in a whisper.

He tilted his head and sniffed the boy interestedly. "I know not. Perhaps he was raving his temperature is higher than it was, he may have been delirious."

She considered his words. "I haven't got any herbs left to make something for a fever." Her hand stretched out and she clasped the toggle of her medicine pouch, it was empty now and with a sigh she closed it again.

"That was foolish, you should have kept some for yourself." He admonished as at his side the boy struggled in his dream and slowly opened his eyes. He turned his head again and looked down at their patient and huffed a sigh at him through his nose.

Morty blinked as above him a huge furry white face with black ears and eye set in circles of black fur came into view, he frowned. "Are you going to eat me?" he asked weakly.

The Panda Laughed. "No young one I am not." He responded drawing his head back a little. Morty frowned Panda's couldn't talk. He squinted slightly until the aura around the bear came into focus. A Ghost.

"He is my spirit guide, my guardian ghost as you called them." A female's voice said. Morty turned his head and looked across the warmly lit cave to the girl in trousers and a ripped grey shirt. She was pouring some steaming liquid into a cup and smiled at him in a friendly way. Walking over towards him she continued "Yours has yet to return with your friends." Reaching him she knelt down and setting the cup aside helped him into a sitting position. He felt weak and fell back slightly against the furry side of her ghost. She lifted the steaming cup towards him.

"Drink this." She said touching it to his lips. He gulped a small sip and nearly spat it back out.

"Urgh what is that?" he demanded looking at her despairingly. She had long red hair, crayon red coloured not the other kind, it was tied back with a scrap of leather yet some had escaped and those strands she brushed behind her ear again impatiently.

"It's an herbal tea you were stung by a scorpion I have done what I can to remove the venom from your blood but I am not a healer and I have not the skills to remove it entirely. This will act as anti-venom and will subdue the remainder of it from your body." She lifted the cup to his lips again. "Drink please or you will die."

He gave a small frightened squeak but drank deeply. Three times more she brought the little cup to him filled with the liquid until Morty thought he would surely burst. He sighed and blinked as sweat dripped from his forehead into his eyes. So tired his body screamed at him for sleep.

Instead he asked her. "How long have I been here? And where is here?" he looked around him.

She considered him as she sat back down on her side of the fire. "Will you not at least tell me who you are?"

"My name is Morty." He said remembering the hooded figures that had appeared before him in the pit. He looked around again this seemed like a different cave, but he could not remember being brought here. "And you are?"

"Ah, Morty." She said and nodded her head slightly. "I am afraid that names have a power and I will not surrender ours so easily." When his lips quivered and that light of fear entered his eyes again she added. "Know this then, we mean you no Harm and that I am also a shaman. As for how you got here I carried you after we dug you out and treated your wounds." She pointed and he lifted the robe covering him to look at the bulky mass that had been his injured leg.

It was bound with scraps of bandage and he realised where the bottom half of her shirt had gone. He bowed his head. "Thank you." He said.

She smiled and nodded. "I am sorry I can't do much more. You're temperature is higher than it should be and the venom caused you to spasm earlier so I assume you will feel somewhat bruised and weak. I will help you find your friends and if I can not I will take you to a doctor."

Morty was silent as he considered himself and took stock of how he felt. He did not feel much pain now but he did feel warm and his body felt weak almost as if he were recovering from a bad case of flu. He shivered slightly. "One of my friends is a doctor." He said

"Then I shall help you find them." She vowed and leaning back grimaced again. He noticed and frowned at her. "Are you hurt too?" he asked. This seemed to amuse her and she laughed.

"In more ways than I think I would like to admit. I've had a hard road getting this far and was attacked a few days ago that's how I came to be here in this mountain and this cave. You were lucky I happened by." She did not mention her vision to him.

"I was yes." He admitted. "We were looking for shelter when I fell. It was dark and cold." He shivered again but wither it was from fear or the fever she didn't know. She watched him her head tilted interestedly.

"You are a strange fellow you know Morty. I have never met anyone like you."

He frowned into the fire and looked away from her out into the darkness of the night. "Is that because I'm so short?" he said bitterly.

She blinked then. "No. I meant you in general I feel like I've been waiting to meet you for a very long time. I'm just sorry that it had to happen now for I cannot tarry too long I am in search of something." She smiled again and watched him scrutinize the shadows. There was a great deal of pain in this one.

The Panda lowered his head and touched Morty on the shoulder with his nose. ""Are you afraid of the night and the cold?" he asked. The boy shook his head and bit his lip.

"I sense a great deal of fear in you Morty." The Panda continued humming slightly to himself. "You must release it or be consumed by it. Come tell us what frightens you."

He frowned slightly. These people were strangers to him, in a cave and in the dark and they wanted him to unload his darkest deepest fears onto them. "I'm afraid of dying." He finally whispered as his turmoiled thoughts over turned themselves in his fevered brain.

"You will not die here today I promise you that." The Panda replied with a look up at his shaman. They locked gazes and she frowned as if a silent conversation was taking place between them.

He sank back as outside the sky turned purple a sure sign dawn was not far away. "Try to sleep. Morty." The girl said kindly there are a few hours until dawn and there will be no point setting out for your friends until then.

He nodded as if on her words the waves of exhaustion kept at bay escaped and washed over him again. He had not the strength to fight it and allowed it to pull him back into a hot and uncomfortable state where his mind took one last moment to wonder who this girl really was before the darkness took him once more.

As he slept the girl placed a hand up and waited for her guardian ghost to pad over to her. She stroked his sleek back and drifted quietly in and out of her own thoughts of her journey here and how far she still had to go.


	5. The Pride of the Guardian Ghost

**The pride of the guardian Ghost **

So much of the world looked the same in 600 years or so. Mosuke hummed to himself as he tried to decide which way to go. The sky was bright blue now the sun had risen and he had been searching for the camp for hours. He sighed dejectedly and strove to push himself onwards. He must find help for Morty. It was his duty as a guardian ghost to protect his Shaman no matter what.

The thought did not fill him with pride as it normally did and instead he looked back the way he had come wondering for the thousandth time if he had done the right thing.

The sun had barely risen above the horizon when Yoh was on his feet. He looked tired and had dark circles under his eyes but his grim set expression told them all that it would be futile to demand he remain behind with Anna who had volunteered to wait saying she felt the tracking would be good exercise for them and that someone needed to stay to guard their camp.

However Yoh knew that this was only for show she had remained behind to ensure that if Morty and Mosuke made their way back there would be someone waiting for them. As they set out the medium took her fiancé by the upper arm and gripped it in an iron fist. "Bring him back safe ok?" she had whispered then released him.

"Aw Anna." He replied and smiled slightly as she sauntered back to the shade of their camp her sunglasses on and a bottle of sunscreen in her hands. So with Lyserg in the lead the boys marched off to find their comrade.

An hour later pushing their way over rocks and soaked with their own sweat Len asked. "And who's idea was this again?" the sun had risen entirely but despite their physical prowess, the sad reality was that the shaman were beat.

"When we find him remind me...to kill him." Trey yelled as his hand hold gave way and he dropped an inch or so before being hoisted upwards by Rio and deposited in a heap on the next safe ledge.

Trey sighed and remained on his knees to catch his breath. He stared as with a 'whump' sound a huge bulging leather bag shot over the ledge and came crashing down inches from his toes. He scrambled backwards away from it as its owner, one hand still firmly gripping the bags handle, pulled himself up and over too.

"Umm no offence dude but won't that thing slow you down?" He asked as the necromancer straightened and shook dust from his white lab coat. "What have you got in there anyway?"

"No." He replied, a man of few words. "Some basic equipment, I did not want to be..." he paused in the eerie way he had when speaking, his accent faint and his tone light and happy. The sort of doctor Trey hated, the one who smiled sweetly one second and jabbed you with a needle the next. "...unprepared." the sentence finished and he flashed his indigo eyes at the Ainu.

A cold shiver ran through the blue haired boy and he huffed out his lungful of air in a tense way.

"Even now you're still creepy you know that." He asked.

"How did he even get this far up?" Joco enquired, drawing the attention back to the point at hand, his claws glowed while he and Mic leapt skilfully from rock to rock sniffing the air.

"Are you sure we're going the right way Lyserg?" Yoh asked pulling himself up last onto the ledge. A white hand shot out and gripped his upper arm pulling him level. "Thanks Faust." He said.

Lyserg stood still his pendulum dangling and glowing slightly it quivered then shot directly upwards. "Yes Chloe never misses her mark."

"I must agree with Joco on this one." Rio said as placing a hand over his eyes he squinted towards the direction the dowser had indicated. "How did Morty get this far up?"

"It's a bit obvious isn't it?" Len asked his arms crossed. "He followed the trail that led him up here then took a wrong turn and ended up in the more rocky area that leads around in a circle. He probably wandered then for a while before trying to find shelter."

Yoh looked up. "Well if that's where Morty went then that's where we're going." He started to climb again Lyserg not far behind. "I didn't say I wasn't coming!" Len flared behind them.

The ghosts not currently in spirit form brought up the rear with Amidamaru looking around him curiously. "Where are you Mosuke..." he asked quietly into the empty air.

By his side Bason followed his gaze. "I am sure your friend will be found." He rumbled.

"Is he still having a hard time adjusting to being paired with a shaman?" Tokageroh asked sadly as the floated upwards.

"I did not say anything to Yoh but both Mosuke and Morty share much in common. Mosuke's violent death left him unsure of himself and his pairing with Morty was not standard. They joined because at the time they both shared the same goal. Both harbours much hurt inside for their lives and I believe that causes them some trouble."

"Ahhh I theenk I get it." The lizard man said sagely. "Mosuke feels he's letting Morty down with his flaws and Morty feels the same way?"

"They have not had the time to unify with one another as we have." Bason said. "They will soon see with practice they are equals and partners just as we had to."

"BASON!" Len's voice drifted back causing the warrior to blush. "Coming Master Len!" he called and vanished.

"So much for equality eh?"

The samurai chuckled and both spirits vanished to find their respective shaman

##

Mosuke passed the same marker for the third time in as many minutes. He tipped back his head and his hands clenched into fists yelled loudly for the world to hear him and his anger. The balled up muscles of his years had labours over forge and bellows strained against his skin and he yelled louder and louder until he made himself hoarse. He was not a waste of spiritual energy and he would prove it. He had a shaman now and though Morty was still learning together they would become a great and mighty union of mind and soul until they could one day stand by their friends Yoh and Amidamaru and challenge any foe that came to attack.

A sniggering sound reached his ears and he glanced behind him o see two ghosts dressed in dungarees and hats sitting on the rock beside him.

"Ya hear him do ya Pete?" one asked as he rubbed a nugget of gold against the front of his shirt. "He leaves his shaman and wanders around all night while the little guy freezes to death."

"You lie!" Mosuke challenged furiously rounding on the pair.

The second ghost a small stumpy man chuckled darkly. "Ah never lie boy. Of course he could have bled to death first...or been eaten who knows its a hard wilderness...Jose and me both fell to our deaths in that cave you left him in." He shrugged. "But what do we know...we're just free wandering spirits not as good as you hoity toity Guardian Ghosts."

Taking a deep breath he heard sounds of shuffling feet and voices. And ignored them. "What have you done with Morty!" he demanded.

"Nothing..." Pete responded.

"The robed witch did it for us." Jose added.

"Why you!"

"Mosuke?" a stern tone called hearing his voice as the prospectors cackled and were gone

He turned and sensing something wonderfully welcome hurtled himself towards it. He came barling around the next corner just as the small group of shaman and guides reached it. His happiness rolled from him in waves as he struck the astounded Amidamaru in the chest his arms open wide and tears ready to stream down his face.

"Oh I have found you at last!" He proclaimed

"It was you!" Yoh said as by his side the English Shaman Mosuke did not know too well held a quivering crystal housing his spirit. "Where's Morty?" he asked.

The others watched him expectantly and his friend frowned down at him. He straightened and became grave. It was To Faust he looked then detaching himself from the Samurai.

"I have been searching for some hours now for a way back to camp for help. Morty has had an accident."

"Is he injured?" Faust asked his pupils becoming pin-pricks and his hand tightening on his bag.

"I think so yes. He fell a long way down and did not regain consciousness fully for at least half an hour. We had planned on finding shelter before his fall and I waited until I thought it was safe to leave him but then could wait no longer."

The pale tall shaman turned to look at his companions. "We must hurry Yoh." He said a sense of urgency in his tone.

"Can you take us there Mosuke?" Yoh asked in an effort to calm himself and the nervous looking others.

The smith glanced around and hung his head. "I don't know I have been walking in circles it seems. I am a terrible guardian Ghost and Lord Morty should have me whipped within an inch of my afterlife."

"It's not surprising." Len said again in the exact same tone he had used before. " These mountains form a connected ring You could very easily have walked all night and not found the right trail down and even if you did it might have taken you out on the opposite side of our camp anyway." He looked around them at the clearing.

The sound of a mountain spring nearby burbled. "This would not be a bad place to camp." Bason added casually. "Anyway," Len continued. "I don't care what you lot do but I will be following Lyserg."

"Lyserg..." Yoh asked as Amidamaru tried to comfort his friend. The green shaman was already working.

"I'm on it Yoh but there are more than one strong pulls in this area I'm not sure which one is Morty."

"Well find him." Joco said leaping up to land by Lyserg's side and sniffing deeply in each direction the pendulum quivered. "This way." He said as Chloe flew straight and he leapt away the others hurry after him.

##

The splash of icy water made him cough and choke. He shook his damp bangs from his eyes and slowly prised the lids open. His head felt fuzzy and his entire body ached, an acidic taste on his tongue made him want to throw up. A hand stroked his back gently and he blinked at the strange girl who had saved him peered back at him in a confused state.

She held the cup of icy water to his lips again and managed to get him to drink some. "Mom?" he asked her puzzled as she laid him flat again and wrung out a strip of cloth to place over his forehead. His bruised body lay striped bare to the funny shorts he wore under his clothes and shone with a thin layer of sweat.

"No Morty." She said gently and turning looked at the Giant Panda sitting in the cave mouth. "He's getting hotter. What should I do? Are you sure we managed to get the venom in time?" She asked.

Krioko gazed sadly at her. "I do not know he is beyond both of our abilities to heal without herbs or spells and we have neither at our disposal."

"He said his friend was a doctor." She added hopefully.

"Then we must endeavour to find them." He peered at her. "Perhaps they will be able to help you also."

Déjà sighed and winced as her ribs ached again. The sheen of sweat on her own forehead paled in comparison with her new friends. He was ill where she was simply tired and in need of rest. She could rest later.

"Should we take him with us or go and bring them back here?" She asked.

The panda considered. "We should take him if you think it best to move him again lest we leave him here and he find himself in more trouble. His friends may also not believe us if we have no proof and we would do more harm than good wasting time trying to explain the situation to a group of hostile shaman."

She nodded and set about dousing the fire and Gathering her pack. She pulled her robe on and lifted the hood and using Morty's shirt tethered him gently onto Krioko's back.

"It's a good thing he's a shaman otherwise I would have to carry him myself." She pulled herself into the spot behind the Pandas shoulder blades the ring on her right hand glowing as her spirit control strengthened.

He lay there in front of her moaning slightly in his sleep like a rag doll as Krioko sprang forwards with incredible speed despite his bulk. The strange trio set out from the cave and down the treacherous route to the valley below.

##

Not far behind them the group of Shaman peered down the hole in the earth to the pit below where Déjà had found Morty.

"This is where I left him!" Mosuke said in horror as both he and Amidamaru stared at the pile of rubble where he had last seen the small shaman.

"Are you sure?" the samurai asked.

"Yes..."

A fwap sound of air catching cloth disturbed them and they looked up in time to see Faust land like a cat with a slight thud on the balls of his feet. One hand clasped his bag the other reached down to the earth to steady himself, he straightened and following his lead Yoh and Joco climbed down also.

He examined the area Mosuke indicated and pressed his fingers against the soil. When he lifted them again they were red. He rubbed the sticky half dried substance between his middle and index fingers and his thumb.

"He was here all right." Joco said sniffing along the ground.

"Faust my love." Eliza called back. She stood at the triangular crack in the rock where droplets of blood led away from the cave in. She pointed one hand down into the darkness and looked back at him.

"Könnte er diesen Weg gegangen sein?" She asked

His gaze considered her question and he frowned. "If he did He can't have gotten that far." He said.

"Didn't we say that last time?" Joco asked as he and Mic smelled the way Eliza was pointing. Yoh glanced back up into the sun and shielded his eyes.

"We'll head that direction down this way. You guys circle back the way we came and we'll meet up back on the other side."

"And what if we find him and he is hurt if you have Faust with you?" Lenny demanded. "I say we all go the same way."

"We'll cover more ground if you Rio and Trey go that way and Faust and I go this way."

"And if we do find him Master Yoh what then?" Rio asked

"Keep him still and do not move him until I get there." Faust said firmly. His tone held no anger but he did not sound his usual carefree self.

"Send one of the Ghosts to find us." Yoh added. "We'll take Joco and you take Lyserg. We'll meet back at that fork in the trail." as the other two with Eliza and the two ghosts departed He raised a hand in farewell and followed them.

They emerged from the short tunnel and Yoh gave a start it opened into a huge wide cavern dripping stalactites reached down like razor edges into the darkness below. It smelled damp and the sound of water far far below them sent a small shiver down his spine.

A thin membrane of rock bridged the long way down between both ledges. On the other side day light was just visible. This in the dark must have looked like something from a nightmare to Morty.

"There are many souls trapped here Yoh." Amidamaru said his eyes hard and wary. "We would be wise not to linger at this time."

Yoh nodded and carefully picked his way across the chasm. "Oh how could I have left him here like this...?" Mosuke asked as they crossed, He looked miserable.

"You did what you thought was right Mosuke. You came to get help. That was the right thing to do." Yoh told him confidently.

The trip across took only minutes and before long they were standing in the sunlight again looking down on the valley below. Joco kneeled down and attempted to pick up the sent again however Faust looked left to right a couple of times and said calmly. "This way."

He walked quickly to the right and up towards a small cave. Yoh hurried ahead he bust into the area his eyes wide and panted. "Morty?" he asked his voice echoing slightly in empty space. His heart fell, his friend was not there.

He turned back to look out over the valley. "Where have you gone Morty?" He asked quietly.

Inside Joco crawled around he wrinkled his nose as both he and Mic separated.

"Urgh...there's a horrible smell!" he rubbed his nose, his eyes watering. "Morty was here all right; his blood is all over the floor. But it looks like someone else was here too."

"He's right." Faust said picking up a large stone and holding it gingerly for them to see. The centre of it bevelled, worn smooth and stained purple as though someone had been grinding something against it. The smell from the stone was pungent and metallic. After a moment's consideration Faust lifted it to his nose and sniffed then drew his tongue along it.

"Ghg!" Joco and Yoh said together as he swirled the taste in his mouth then spat. "Actena." He said looking at Eliza.

"What now?" Joco asked.

"The Actena plant. It is an herb a very rare one. It grows only on an island off of Miami and is used in the treatment of poisons."

"You think someone poisoned Morty?" Yoh asked anxiously.

"Or tried to treat it after something else had poisoned him" Faust said standing and dropping the rock. He glanced around the cave again and picked up a strip of cloth, it was still damp. "They didn't leave too long ago. If we hurry we'll catch them."

"Whoever they are." Joco said in a worried tone.

The trio hurried back out of the cave and down the trail to the fork where they would meet the rest of the group. From there it was a steep trek back to the valley.

##

Déjà panted slightly as the effort to maintain her balance and Morty's proved more difficult than she had originally thought. She stopped as she neared the end of the trail and licked her dry cracked lips. Under her Morty trembled and she cast a worried look down at him.

"We need to stop Krioko. He needs some water." She said sliding from the Panda's back. The Valley in front of them stretched endlessly out. How they would ever find his friends was beyond her. She felt a familiar chill creep down her spin as she observed her new acquaintance.

He needed medicine and here she was stuck with him in the desert millions of miles away from civilisation with no hope of finding those friends who could save him.

"I'm afraid of dying." Morty had told her the night before and she had promised that he would not die. Not from a little fall and an insect bite. She felt a cold fury take over her then. What good were her powers if she could not save those around her? If she could not save the life of this strange short statured teenager then what hope had she of ever saving her people?

Spirits hear my plea help me to save this soul. She thought desperately empowering her feelings with a little furyoku.

"He is hotter." Krioko said feeling Morty's burning cheek against his fur. "Perhaps removing him from contact with me might help." Hurrying her hands unsteady she untied him and caught him as he fell back into her arms. He wasn't overly heavy she mused laying him flat. "There is a river close by we could bathe him there."

She nodded her head and scanned the land for the river she couldn't see. "I see it not." She said to him. "Help me." He vanished and reformed in his spirit form she stood the ring on her finger glowing. "Unity!" she called integrating the spirit of the panda with her own body.

The pressure inside increased as she felt their souls merge together. His strength pouring into hers, his mind quieting the raging battle that went on in her own, she could feel his disapproval as he felt the stress her body was in and how weak she was becoming.

"You should have told me sooner." They said in unison.

"I had other things on my mind." They responded as they bent to pick the small form up again. Slinging him across their back they hurried to the sliver of silver a half mile away where they could rest.

"Do you think it is meant that we save this boy?" her thoughts asked his. He considered a while as the sound of their combined feet pounding the rhythm of the hunt and the impact jarred their skull slightly. They would have a headache soon running like this.

"I know not. I feel that somehow he is very important but that he himself doesn't know that yet. There is an aura of power around him. Both his own and others. I assume his friends must be shaman too."

"Could you track them by the aura if we need to?" she asked.

"I could try but it would take a great deal of power from you. Perhaps we could scry them at the river."

She hummed and continued running.

##

Behind them the group of shaman stood on the ledge above the end of the trail. Yoh Asakura watched as far in the distance the green blur Joco had spotted hurried away from them. He couldn't see it but he knew whoever it was that they had Morty and a hot burst of anger erupted within him. They were a good distance away now but they valley was low and flat and stretched for miles.

Together the group summoned their power from within and on an unspoken agreement gave chase. Whoever it was they could not out run their combined giant spirit control. They would not take Morty.

"MORTYYYYYYYYY!" Yoh yelled across the desert plain

##

Morty frowned he could hear Yoh's voice call to him from somewhere far off. He opened his eyes and heard the bubbling of a creak. His skin felt slightly damp but unlike the other times he had woken it felt good. He sat up groggily and blushed as he noted the Girl above him. Her hood was up and she smiled and dabbed his forehead again.

"Why am I in my boxers?" he asked in a gravelly tone.

"You are feverish I'm trying to cool you down." She explained and shed him. "You need to conserve your strength. You are still very unwell." She told him gravely.

He smiled ruefully. "You said that tea was going to help."

"It did help. But we weren't quick enough. We'll find your doctor friend they will take care of you."

"Faust." He said weakly.

Déjà blinked and helped him sit up to take a drink of water. The sting wound on his back had turned a shade of purple like the poultice and the swelling had gone. The bruise was considerable and the x shaped scars would probably be there forever. She felt guilt for that. "Faust?" she asked.

"Yeah that's his name. My doctor friend...Faust VIII actually... he's the descendant of the man from ledged. Do you know the story." He asked.

She smiled again. "No I do not."

"Faust the first made a deal with a daemon. He was a necromancer and he wanted power. In the end the daemon claimed him but not before he had left all his teachings in an underground room. Our Faust fond them while trying to resurrect his wife Eliza. She's now his guardian ghost." He looked up at the strange girl and saw her, face pale and almost as flushed as his felt, stare at him in horror. Her teeth were set hard and rigidity had come into her eyes.

"A necromancer?" she whispered as though afraid the word would bite her. "That is one of the blackest of the arcane arts, I was taught never to trust anyone who preformed such atrocities..."

Morty felt a small flare of loyalty. "Faust isn't a bad guy. Not anymore."

"Anymore?" she asked and arched an eyebrow.

He took a breath and explained. "He was a bad guy I guess. He's kind of insane...obsessed with his wife and his work he...he did things that he normally wouldn't do trying to get her back because he loved her so much. When Anna gave him what he wanted he became a changed man. He's really kind and caring."

"I see..." she said staring at him. " He did something to you didn't he?" she asked accusingly.

"Yes." Morty began the memory waking an old terror inside but that flare of loyalty came again and he remembered also the match against team Spartacus and how he had felt a rush of understanding towards Faust. "But I forgive him for that. He's my friend."

As he uttered the words he felt a large weight lift from his chest. Yoh had been right it felt good to let it go. He sighed happily.

"At least I know his name" he added as the girl continued to look unconvinced. Her face flushed brighter red staining her cheeks further and he smiled in an apologetic way.

"Déjà." She said after a moment as if it were a word she had long since forgotten. "My name is Déjà of Avalon and this is my guardian Ghost Krioko." The panda came into existence and looked at him its eyes warm and friendly. It was wise and held a sort of beauty about it in the daylight Morty thought.

"It's a pleasure to meet you." He said formally and she helped him finish his water.

A low chuckle filled the peace between the new friends. "Well well well...what have we here a kind Samaritan has stopped to aid a sick child by the banks of the river." The voice was jarring. Déjà's eyes constricted as she whirled to face its owner springing to her feet.

The man stood, taller than her a few feet away his teeth, elongated and sharp looking grinned at them both. On his left hand he wore a ring and around his neck a glowing shell necklace held up a tunic of deep blue. He smelled of salt water. Morty frowned at him and tried to get to his feet.

His aching body refused to allow it but he persisted despite the thunderous pain it caused his head. To the mans right and left another two men appeared a shimmering aura of ghost stood in front of them one, along slimly thing waved through the air sparks shooting along it while the others, a large fish with wicked looking teeth beamed menacingly at him.

He felt his heart constrict as Déjà turned to look at him then hissing brought her attention back to them.

"What do you want Kaolin." She said her tone threatening.

He smiled. "A happy coincidence I assure you Déjà. We were merely scouting out unsuspecting shaman. We assumed you had perished in the fire that claimed your uncle. I had no idea you were so..." he liked his teeth his smile unfaltering. "Resourceful. You were in pretty bad shape when I left you last."

She scowled. "What do you want?" She repeated.

"The same thing you do little sister. To have peace amongst out people once more."

She spat. "Liar. You shame your clan oath breaker. There is nothing here for you and your spirits are out of their depths in this dry land. Why don't you as they say in this world take a hike?"

The mans smile became slightly more forced. "The humans have corrupted you. They and old Orak have polluted your way but no matter. I can smell the aura of that boy. He is a shaman and we will take his furyoku before your friends reach you to assist. "

Morty squeaked and fell backwards looking terrified. "Friends?" she asked. He pointed a hand carelessly as behind them a large dust cloud raced towards them.

Déjà turned her attention back to him and growled a low sound deep in her throat that reminded Morty of the panda. She spun her hands and immediately a Bo staff appeared it glowing slightly. Her opponent's smile faded entirely.

"If you want him then you're going to go through me first!" she told them loudly. Glancing behind she checked Morty again. "Morty can you stand." She asked.

He nodded "I...I think so." Across from them the mans ring glowed and turned into a trident.

"Then stand and run. Run to your friends." She said and pulling on an inner power summoned her guide. "Krioko spirit form!" the black and white bear leapt growling into a spirit flame. "Into the Bo Staff!" she yelled as across from them the man summoned a giant great white shark. Its toothy grin flashed once then its spirit was contained in the trident. He could see it spirit form over its owners shoulder. So these men were shaman.

"GO NOW MORTY!" She yelled and launched herself against the shark man. A series of furious blows erupted sparks from the weapons as they clashed metal against wood and he felt sure that the staff would break.

He blinked and then immediately began scrambling away his body shouting protests at him for his insubordination. The meters felt like miles but he forced himself on the sense of danger sharp in his senses.

The other two men were closing on him giving chase. He was tired. A wave of dizziness hit him and he stumble forwards only to fall into a heap. "Mosuke!" he yelled closing his eyes.

In the distance the dust cloud was gaining on them. Standing on Faust's giant spirit control Mosuke stiffened. "What is it?" Yoh asked. He couldn't explain could only feel the urgent need of the calling. Willing him someplace else.

He began to fade. "Morty needs me..." he whispered as he vanished. But what help would he be...he had no medium with him.

He materialised in front of the half naked shaman and blinked at the pair of men bearing down on him. "Morty!" he said looking behind him as the dusty and trampled looking boy got to his feet shakily.

"Mosuke!" Morty yelled feeling a happiness overwhelm him. "SPIRIT FORM!" He continued as the ghost became a swirling mass of red energy. "UNITY!" He felt himself integrate with Morty's body felt its fatigue and knew that the little guy did not have much furyoku to maintain this form for long.

Just in time he leapt Morty's body out of the way as a wave of water crashed down onto the place they had just been.

Déjà watched Morty's guardian as it was summoned. She was impressed but she didn't have time for that. Her opponent was much stronger than she thought. And capable of neutralising her Furyoku if she gave him too much time to become familiar with it. She dodged a stab from the shark man's trident as behind her a flash of light indicated Morty had managed to procure himself a weapon.

He threw the first attacker off of him and held the rowing paddle firmly in his hands, it was no hammer but it would do for now.

A large swirling tornado of sand and dust blocked Déjà from his view. The shaman with the toothy fish smirked slightly at his handiwork and then down at Morty.

"Surrender." He stated his friend getting to his feet and pulling a dagger from his belt. Morty huffed and grimaced as he head throbbed.

The blow knocked her out of the sand storm and she slid for a few feet on her back along the ground. Rolling back onto her shoulders she flipped onto her feet and parried another blow just in time. With a glance over at Morty she could see his spirit control flickering.

His trident slipped under her guard and she felt the fast sting of metal as one of the forks pierced her side just above the hip. She spun away from it as her instruction had taught her too minimise the damage and rolled along the ground. Her hand clamped over the small hole. She had been lucky he had missed her life giving organs. But she would be in trouble if she did not staunch the bleeding.

"NOOOOO MORTY!" She yelled but she was not the only one who had yelled it. The huge dust cloud had arrived and with it a group of people. A huge pink...thing dropped from the sky.

She disengaged and sprinted away from her opponent towards Morty where the other attacker raised a glowing shell made dagger. She was too far away...she would never make it in time...she forced her burning muscles onwards as A boy dropped from the incredible height of the pink thing closely followed by a man in white.

With a large burst of power the two shaman standing over the now flat on his back Morty were sent hurtling away into the dust storm they had created. They hit the charging trident warrior square in the chest. As he was propelled backwards by his companions he threw his weapon towards the boy with brown hair who bent to check on Morty.

Morty mumbled as he felt some thing poking at his back then himself being turned. A hand pressed against his burning forehead feeling cool and calming next to his skin.

"No...No déjà..." he muttered as the worried face of Yoh came into clearer focus. "Morty...Morty?" he asked looking concerned. Mosuke hovered near him looking terrible.

"Morty." That was Faust's voice. He turned his head in the other direction and peered confusedly at the doctor receiving a calculating stare in return as hands quickly examined his bruised half naked body for any obvious injures. "Can you hear me?" he asked.

"Help...Déjà..." he said again pointing with no idea what direction she was in.

"Help who?" Yoh asked.

"The shaman..." he responded.

"We took care of them Morty...Yoh said. He glanced at Faust who was preparing a syringe. " What's wrong with him?" he asked.

"He has a very high fever. His body is weak and it looks like someone tried to suck out venom of some kind a bite or a sting perhaps."

Morty sighed exasperated why wouldn't Yoh listen...couldn't he hear the noise of the battle going on behind them. "Nooo she saved me. They are going to kill her." He said.

A whistling sound echoed towards them and Yoh turned in horror as he saw its source. A trident hurtled with unearthly speed towards them. He struggled to stand and deflect it and saw Faust ready to snatch Morty out of the way but the blow never came.

A clanging sound a blur of movement and a red-haired teenager arched like a cat over the three of them to land slightly to Yoh's left. She stood in faded ragged looking leather trousers and a shirt with a billowing green robe on her shoulders, A Bo staff in her left hand.

The girl was panting her eyes wary as she scanned for the direction the attack had come from. Waiting to see where they would emerge from. She glanced back at them then at Morty a second then closing one eye as if in pain staggered back and fell to one knee using the staff as support. Her spirit control broke.

"Are you Morty's friends?" she hissed through her teeth. Blood trickling through her fingers as she clamped them over a wound. A Panda Materialised next to her and growled slightly at them. None of them replied. She could see a second dust cloud and hear a roar like an engine coming behind them. More of their group she assumed.

"Yes." The blond one in the white coat replied finally as he wrapped bandages around Morty. She looked at him and tried to control her breathing. Her eyes slid to his guardian ghost who looked back with just as much intensity. She was still in pink but much smaller now holding a scythe.

"You're the Doctor?" she asked him

He looked up from his work and frowned at her his gaze was truly terrifying. She watched his eyes flicker from the leaking red liquid dripping over her fingers to the unsteady rise and fall of her chest.

"Yes." He said again. "You are the one who gave him the Acnea herb?" She nodded

"I told him I would try to find you. I am glad you found us."

Something else pulled at her a familiar sensation. She looked between the two shamans standing. The brown haired kid and an African American boy with had tribal markings on his arms. He stared warily back at her his glowing claws poised if she made a wrong move.

The brown haired boy held a glowing sword. He seemed calm but a rolling of anger emanated from him and she considered if the only reason he hadn't already attacked her was because Faust had mentioned the herb.

"Is one of you called Asakura?" she breathed heavily her heart bursting with hope as she waited for an answer.

Yoh blinked. "I..." he started as his sword replied. " No we do not know this girl...it would be unwise to tell her anything." It was too late however as she glanced sideways at him knowingly

The girl closed one eye and grimaced as she pulled herself upright. "It was a difficult road to finding you Yoh Asakura. I prey the spirits do not see fit to end me here when I am so close." She took a breath and continued. "You must be wary of these men. They are no longer wholly human and will not be easily defeated. Do not let them win for if they do they will take your furyoku. "She looked at Faust.

"Is he going to be all right?" she asked when he nodded she smiled slightly.

"Who are you?" Yoh asked her incredulously. She pulled herself up to her full height as by him his spirit control merged to form the shape of a samurai warrior. At her side Krioko growled his approval.

"I am Déjà of Avalon. I'm Morty's friend." She added the last part seeing the small Shaman open his eyes. He frowned confused finding himself in Faust's grasp then smiled at her.

"I told you he'd help." Morty whispered as he tried to sit up and Faust pushed him back.

"They come." Krioko said and the assembled group looked at him.

The men were back stumbling out of the cloud and Déjà and her guide growled.

"So your friends are with you now. "He laughed. "It won't make much difference. Your fate is to end here today."

"The only one ending here today is you!" she yelled back at him. "Krioko!" the Panda leapt up into a swirling flame of spirit and into her Hand.

"Amidamaru!" the voice by her called and she found herself grinning slightly looking sideways at him. His sword shone intensely as his spirit channelled through it. She swirled her medium through the air once. Yoh looked determined.

"SHARK BAIT BITE! The one with the trident yelled summoning his spirit into true being. The great white shark with tribal markings over its eye spun from nothingness and swam at them through the air. Behind her the clawed boy exclaimed "Wholey sea creature that's one BIG fish!"

"Okino blade!" she yelled leaping forwards as a blast of light consumed it and she sent it back at her assailant. She felt the other two spring forwards as well leaving Faust to tend Morty but had not the time to enquire anymore however as the attack started again.

Moment's later staggering half blind through the sand storm she felt her back contact with someone else's and felt heavy breathing mirror her own.

"These guys are powerful." Yoh said behind her.

"They have a large unnatural source of Furyoku that feeds them." She gasped in her hand her Bo staff said.

"I can not continue hounding this fiend. You must find a way to defeat him and quickly."

"I too am tiring Yoh." His sword said.

"So Déjà what do we do." He asked as if they had fought many battles together and had not only just met. She frowned.

"If I can defeat the one with the trident then their Power will weaken."

"Do you have enough strength left for that?" he asked feeling her sag slightly. He parried a blow that came from nowhere inside the dust.

"No..." she admitted.

"Together then." He said to her and to his sword said. "The double medium." A bright light shone from him and an immense rush of power filled the small area they occupied she blinked at the larger sword he now held. And together they began hacking at the foe.

Real life was a funny thing she thought as Yoh was blasted back from the shark. It used its tale to sweep her sideways and she considered how infrequently she had actually battled. Things always seemed to go so slowly then but now...now things were going much much too fast. As if someone had sped up time from normal.

She didn't have enough energy to keep up this battle. Her staff swept the feet out from under him as the bladed part of her attacked arched into his neck. He kicked upwards with his feet catching her mid attack full in the ribs and sending her hurtling over him and down hard onto the ground.

She coughed blood however did not have time to right herself as the Shark came barging into her and she Felt her spirit control finally break. Krioko and her Bo staff hit the ground not far from where the Asakura kid was beating back the deranged looking shaman whose eel guide sent electric sparks out in every direction.

As the attack came again and without Krioko she only had time to throw up all of the furyoku she had left into a shield Before the sheer weight of the creature and the power behind it hit her dead on, there was no where to go. The force of the blow knocked her backwards some distance, through the sand storm ramming her body violently against the ground for the hundredth time in so many minutes.

He was on her then. Teeth shining in the sun. Kaolin stepped his full weight up and onto her bringing his heel down hard. A crack loud like the breaking of dried wood echoed into the air followed by a primal scream of pain and terror.

She heard her name being called but no longer cared. Her shoulder throbbed brilliantly then went numb as she lost all feeling in her left arm. Her vision turning red and blurry she felt sick and dizzy and heaved under him where he pinned her to the ground. The tip of his trident at the fleshy point where her aching sternum met her throat.

"Déjà!" she heard Morty's voice. At least he was alive she kept telling herself and Krioko would be ok too. Hopefully her death would not be his ending connected with his as she was. He could protect the boy then. She thought back to how easily they had swatted the one with the dagger away. Compared to her these shaman were powerful aided by the souls they had consumed but to Yoh and his friends they were not too much to handle.

If they did not realise who Yoh was perhaps they could still win. The grinning man raised his trident from her throat releasing a small trickle of blood down her neck... He glinted his teeth at her, she closed her eyes, and the last sound she would hear would be that strange roar she could only think was the sand storm and awaited her end...

"BASON! RAPID TEMPO ASSUALT!" The cry echoed loudly and the force of the man's body on hers lifted as he was thrown from her. The blast sent her backwards too. With a shrill scream she landed again, felt the pressure that signified his presence in the realm of majik release then turned and threw up.

##

Time no longer seemed to have any meaning. She heard voices... She struggled to push herself upright. Managed to sit up then feeling heavy on one side collapsed again jostling her shoulder. Vomit and bile rose in her throat and she was sick again.

An accented voice nearer than she thought said. "EWW" frightening her. She did not know who these people were. The pride in her melted and she whimpered in pain and self pity.

"Déjà?" Morty's voice. She stared at him, covered in a hooded sweater miles too big and clean white bandages. His cheeks still burned red but he his eyes looked less glassy.

"Master Yoh over here!" the accented voice called again.

She watched as Morty stepped aside to allow someone to kneel down by her. Her head lolled and she lost consciousness momentarily. Hands touched her. She shivered from them expecting harsh contact but instead felt a gentle prodding around her shoulder and under her shirt at her ribs. She hissed and choked.

"No...please." she said trying to edge away from the contact. She peered up in a dazed way at the intense indigo coloured eyes that stared back at her. In them she could see something that pulled on the dark thoughts in her own heart.

The voice of Orak so long ago filled her. _"The darkest of all arcane arts...necromancy."_

She summoned the last reserves of her strength and pushed him away. He swayed slightly but did not move. Her hand fell limp at his side.

"Get...away..." she said. Fingers pressed defiantly into her neck. He watched her as his free hand finished its quick assessment of her other injuries.

"Be still." His soft voice responded startling her. His tone was filled with such kindness and worry that it confused her.

"How is she Faust?" Yoh's voice asked somewhere behind her head. "Is she Alive?" Another asked.

"Yes." A soft voice replied looking up releasing her from the eyes. An effect like a tunnel and she lost consciousness again. "But her breathing is irregular and her shoulder is dislocated. I think some ribs are broken too She's going into shock."

Faust looked back at her. "I'd rather not move her until I set the shoulder." He said investigating the jarred joint. "But it would be best to get both of them back to camp as quickly as possible."

"I'm fine." Morty said defiantly where he sat by Yoh's left leg. The German doctor looked up at him unyielding. "You will stay where I can see you." he said.

"Faust's right Morty you still don't look well." Yoh said kindly. "That was impeccable timing Lenny." He said looking up from Déjà to the pointed haired boy who smirked.

"Naturally." He said.

Voices speaking...pain everywhere. What was happening? The girl groaned again and faded back into consciousness.

"Can you hear me?" the soft voice asked. She chuckled weakly as response he was persistent this one. "I am going to fix your shoulder... I am afraid this will hurt." The soft voice continued near her eye level.

Then without warning the soft touch became firm and purposeful and the world erupted into pain again. She screamed her back arching in and her body trying to arch away from the pain.

The crack resonated inside her body this time and her survival instincts kicked in as adrenaline rushed through her. She shoved away hard this time from this soft voiced pain bringer and felt his grip loosen. Reflexes born of years of martial arts study caused her to flip crookedly and landing unsteadily on her feet, her vision clearing to blurred colours she saw a patch of blond and pink and white kneeling where she had just been.

A white and green blur held its hands up. "Déjà...he didn't mean to hurt you. You saved my friend...let us help you."

"No..." she stated feebly. "It is...the Blackest of the arcane...arts." she said incoherent. "It is I who must...help...You...Yoh...Asakura..." the momentum of her sways carried her backwards. The patch of blond and white sprang up.

"Quickly Eliza!" she heard. She had time to vaguely wonder where her own guardian had gone as she toppled before Something she could both sense and feel caught her...then no more


	6. Paging Doctor Faust

**Paging Doctor Faust **

The girl's light form swayed and he stood, his entire height coming up lightning fast. She was mumbling something about Black arts and waving her uninjured arm in his direction. He made a mental note to investigate that later. "Quickly Eliza! He said as she fell backwards.

Faust pushed enough of his furyoku into his departed other half and she caught the girl before her unconscious form hit the earthy floor. He winced internally as he heard her shoulder pop again and saw it sag forwards slightly. He sighed knowing he would have to re-set it again but not really saddened by the fact.

A small dull sound stemming from Yoh's left leg caused him to turn again. Morty it seemed had succumbed to the rise in his temperature and the heat from the day and had passed out again.

"Wah, Morty..." Yoh said kneeling down by his friend and shaking him slightly. Faust raised an eyebrow as Eliza scooped up the girl and then crossed the small space that separated him from Morty. Bending down he checked the boy's vitals again and satisfied he was stable picked him up into his arms where he laid his head lolling over Faust's Oracle bell.

The others were having some kind of debate he had apparently missed. As he focused his attention away from his patients he became aware of Yoh and Len watching him.

"Hmm?" he asked and smiled. "You need not worry I will take very good care of them both." He said happily as he crossed to Eliza and her burden and freeing one hand from under Morty quickly checked the girl's vitals.

Behind the tall German the others watched. "I do not think I have ever seen Faust so happy." Rio said under his breath to Yoh who grinned uneasily.

"Mmm yes I quite agree. He's like a child in a candy store." Len mused He quirked an eyebrow and then blinking looked away from the man who now had his ear pressed to the girl's chest and instead glanced around him.

"We should move." He said finally. "Whoever these goons were they will probably have someone come looking for them eventually and it would be for the best if we were not anywhere around when that happens."

Yoh raised a hand to his eyes and surveyed the two remaining shaman unconscious in the sand. "We can't just leave them here, And besides what about Anna."

Lyserg hummed as he and Chloe tapped he boot of one of the Shaman with the tip of his shoe. "I think they'll be ok. We should go back to camp and pack up then head north like we were planning we can find someplace to camp tonight and then start out again early tomorrow."

"That won't be possible." Faust said looking up at them. "Both Déjà and Morty will need some time to recuperate and I would rather not continue to move them back and forth until I have had opportunity to examine and treat both properly."

Lyserg's expression hardened. "We might not have the choice." He said in indignation. As Faust's eyes flashed.

"You question my judgement?" he demanded.

"Whoa guys...calm down. We'll think of something." Joco said looking worriedly between the two. He stepped between the pair and held his hands up. His head hung low in preparation for some joke or another.

Len launched into a speech before the comedian could utter a sound that would mean his end. "What I suggest if no one has any silly qualms is that half of us use giant spirit control to return to camp and pack up. The other half will go to the small clearing in the mountains we passed and get ready to set up there. Faust will go with Morty and..." he frowned as his eyes flickered to the strange girl.

"Déjà" Yoh supplied helpfully from his side.

"Yes...Déjà whoever she may be. Do you think it really safe to take her with us? I mean these Shaman were clearly acquaintances of hers she could be dangerous." He glanced at Yoh.

"I will not leave her here." Faust said with finality.

Len's face turned red as the spike of his hair throbbed slightly. "Oh very well. Faust will go with Morty and the potentially dangerous stranger back to the cave you mentioned Yoh and wait there in shelter until we have the camp set up then one of us will get them and they can re-join us." He folded his arms and smirked as above his left shoulder Bason's spirit mode floated.

"Brilliant Master Len." The ghost said.

"Yes...I thought so." Len agreed.

A soft growling brought the groups attention as the Hulking shape of a Panda unburdened itself of a long carved wooden staff. It sauntered into their midst and padded towards Faust and Eliza. Len's grip tightened on his Kwando.

"Peace warrior." Krioko said as he paused before the Chinese shaman and dipped his head in a respectful gesture at Amidamaru and Yoh. He reached Faust and lowered his head a growl echoing from deep in his chest. He watched the Doctor warily.

"The young one said you were a necromancer." He tilted his head as if considering.

"I am." Faust said quietly.

"Your soul shines bright Johann Faust VIII yet I can sense the darkness around you. My people have been taught to avoid your kind at all costs."

His gaze flickered to the hastily bandaged wound at Déjà's hip then up at Eliza who looked back questioningly. Suddenly his tone and accent changed and he asked her something directly in what the others could only assume was German.

"Who is that?" Len demanded

"I think it's her guardian ghost dude." Trey responded as they watched.

The nurse seemed genuinely delighted at being addressed openly and responded in kind gesturing with her chin at Faust then down at the figure she held. She flushed and lowered her eyes a small smile on her lips. By her Faust's eyes widened. Her tone came slightly more urgent as she finished.

"I see." The Panda said and looking back to Faust, its expression somewhat bemused, who stared back his expression neutral once more " It seems I may have misjudged you However and I thank you for your assistance."

"Are you injured Yoh Asakura?" he added.

Yoh blinked then shook his head. "Nah I'm all right. "He said carefully as the black and white bear turned to look at Amidamaru then away again.

A silence filled the small group broken only by the whooshing of the wind as it blew sand around.

"It's settled then." Rio said breaking the silence. "Tokageroh and I will return ahead to camp and we will pack up enough to provide shelter for Morty and the injured damsel. We will then return to the clearing in the mountains and you will follow with the rest of the supplies and Miss Anna."

"Hmm yes." Len agreed tearing his eyes away from the Panda and the girl. "We can rest there for a few days then move on and continue our journey north. "

"Everybody's happy." Lyserg said sceptically. As the Panda with a look at his shaman padded over to stand by Yoh and Len.

"I will accompany you." he said to the head phoned boy who if he was surprised did not show it merely nodded as if he had expected it. Mosuke hovered by the unconscious Morty, there would be no question of where he was going. He had left his shaman once and resolved never to do so again.

##

Déjà felt ill, her flesh burning, simply reduced to a being of sensation only. Air sweeping in and out of her lungs felt shallow and less rich to that which she was accustomed somehow.

Morty quivered slightly as something gently placed a cooling hand on his cheek. He opened his eyes and saw a warm pair of lavender coloured eyes set in a pale heart shaped face. A cascade of honey golden hair framed the picture he stared up at her a moment before realising where they were.

Above him the rocky ceiling of a cave, the smell of that tea slightly diluted now and the sounds of birds chirping nearby. He blinked confused as the eyes drew back slightly and proffed a tiny glass tube to his lips.

A thermometer. He allowed it to slip in and under his tongue as Eliza took his wrist and peered off into the distance.

"Eliza..." he said around the thermometer. She looked up and shed him then looked away again. He fell silent and instead focused on his surroundings as his attention came flooding back. He felt less heavy but tired. The slip of glass was removed and Eliza peered at it a moment then clicked her tongue and shook it as if disappointed in him. He shrunk back into the blankets that covered him feeling embarrassed that he had not passed whatever criteria she had been marking his temperature on wondering if ghosts even had tongues to click. But then again, he mused Eliza was not a normal ghost.

"Eliza where's Faust." He asked her and she frowned down at him then gestured to the other side of the cave. He turned his head, not trusting himself to sit, and felt his heart constrict. Faust stood over a carved ledge where the chalk white form of Déjà lay.

The sight would have been frightening enough under the best of circumstances had the necromancer's hands not been easily visible. On his fingers two skull rings that Morty recognised shone with an eerie green glow.

The Necromancer's eyes had dilated and he flicked them once in Morty's direction before he began speaking. His tone was deep like deadened tombstones falling, each word stamping an air of darkness on the small cave until it seemed to Morty that Faust was cloaked in shadow.

"I call on the power of those who are no longer..."he said somewhat sadly. " Come to me ghosts of the great beyond for your master calls you. I conjure you spirits into these hands so I may reach into those that are with us and help those that no longer are."

The glow engulfed both of Faust's gloved hands and again his eyes flickered up to the stunned Morty before he turned away with a sweep of his billowing lab coat. He advanced on Déjà his eerie fingers twitching as if with anticipation.

"What are you ...don't Faust!" Morty yelled startled at how weak his voice sounded. He pulled himself upright and swayed. A dripping bag hung above him and he pushed himself up from the padded sickbed.

He collapsed onto the cave floor as he weak legs refused to hold him. "Stop it!" he yelled again tears forming. He clenched his fists as confusion engulfed him. What was Faust doing how could he return to that after all they had been through together.

Noise was beginning to come to her ears now. Sounds that did not make sense and the hush of wind like many voices some distance away talking amongst themselves, as she contemplated it she became aware of another sensation.

"Hurts..." she thought as a croaking voice repeated it. Her voice?

"I know..." another voice answered in her mind. "It'll be over soon then I promise you'll feel much better."

Faust looked sadly down at the girl then flexing his fingers once more plunged them into her body. He closed his eyes and focused feeling his way through the tangled and turbulent mess that was her insides. Her breathing was short and staggered her lips slowly turning blue. He pushed harder into her chest cavity. The effect was instantaneous but he had been expecting it and did not stop.

The pain was too much like rough fabric on sensitive skin. Sand paper on a burn scraping away the already tender skin and she shrank away from it. It ebbed and bloomed and she fancied she could feel something moving inside pinching something and causing hot flushing to fill her cheeks. She sweated then felt something inside break as if a rubber band drawn too tight had snapped.

Her body stiffened and she screamed internally as darkness pulled her down along way. Externally the sound was piercing a loud long forgotten noise of an infant in distress the sound crashed over Morty like a physical force.

"STOP IT FAUST!" He managed to find his voice and forced the sound out as loud as he could make it over her scream. By his side Mosuke materialised looking worried. The young shaman glanced at his guardian ghost.

"Mosuke stop him!" he yelled desperately as the smith sadly shook his head. Disbelief filled Morty he forced his hands underneath him and tried to push himself up again his back throbbing.

"I TRUSTED YOU!" HE Screamed over Déjà again at Faust's back.

Faust frowned in concentration ignoring the noise as his arms slid in up to his elbows he worked with as much speed as he dared knowing that her body could not take the stress for much longer but also that it was the only way to ensure their safety and her survival.

The doctor forced the small fragment of bone out from his patient's lung and back into the place it should have been. He could hear it click as her other lung tried desperately to compensate. He had tried twice to re-inflate the offending organ with no success. Leading him to conclude that the lung had not simply collapsed but been punctured. The boy was screaming too now. His concentration slipped and he felt part of his senses return to the physical world outside of her lung.

"Morty." Faust said sounding stern. "Please calm yourself." He said

"Calm down!" he spat his little form shaking with rage and anger. "HOW COULD YOU YOU'RE KILLING HER!"

Faust felt a stab of annoyance. "If you will not calm down I will have Eliza sedate you." He warned.

"Please..." the boy said quietly as he managed to stand shakily. " Please...stop... don't do this Faust." He said as the necromancer snapped his fingers and Eliza loomed above Morty and began hauling him back to his bed. The tears, hot and filled with betrayal and desperation fell then as he glanced at his own guardian who held him in check.

"You're on his side!" He accused "Please... she tld me you were evil Faust. I told her you had changed...please I told her you had changed." He wailed and with a small sign the lab coated man seemed to ignore him.

"I can understand why the idea of this makes you feel uncomfortable..." Mosuke said calmly his expression serious. "But Morty your new friend has a serious injury and Faust can fix it no other way. Do you understand? He must do this; he must use his furyoku as he knows how. To use his necromancy to save her life."

Morty choked back a sob. As Faust's head turned and considered him peripherally. His eyes looked like icy infernos burning and lit with the unnatural glow of the hands in his patient.

"Will you calm down?" he asked

He painstakingly watched the boy a moment noting the colour as it left him and his defiant expression, the eyes screamed treachery, and then said. "Eliza." Turning away again, the nurse nodded and picked a syringe up from a small dish near by advanced on Morty.

Morty shrank back but there was no place to go trapped as he was between the kindly looking nurse and the worried form of his own guardian ghost. Mosuke held him in place as she gently pushed the hypodermics contents into his IV line and within seconds he could feel it work calming him.

Faust returned to the matter at hand and manipulating the lung willed it to rise in his grasp. It filled and emptied pathetically like a shrivelled paper bag. He poured more energy into it and felt it balloon under his fingers. He let it go and waited a moment before moving on to her heart. His palm closing on it he felt her constrict under him and shiver as a spasm went through her. Gently he squeezed encouraging the pump to return to a smoother rhythm.

Finally he withdrew his hands and bent heavily over her leaning on the ledge for support as he steadied his own breathing.

Déjà's cheeks flushed with colour as her blood began to oxygenate properly. She sighed and he was able to take a moment to check on Morty.

Mosuke appeared distressed as Faust approached. He watched the doctor push Morty's hair back from his face and peer into the clouded eyes that stared back at him unrecognising. "Is he ok?" the ghost asked quietly.

"He'll be fine." Eliza assured him as Faust gave her an instruction or two in German and then returned to the girl.

Déjà blinked in the empty darkness that surrounded her. Where was she? Was she dead? It seemed peaceful here and she floated a while trying to recall how she had come to be there. Sometime later, however long it had been she became aware of something else. It was like a bee sting she had had many summers ago in her side. She focused what little attention she had on it and felt liquid pushing from it rushing into her blood making her thoughts heavy again.

Blackness for a time. Then a deep and vicious sensation, as though someone was poking a stick into the gash on her side. She moaned and the prodding stopped then started again, this way that way until it poked once more to the place it hurt. She gave another low moan instinctively and tried to curl around the wound protectively from whatever it was.

Something firmly pushed her back and her limbs slow to respond to her will seemed only too happy to follow the other forces. How odd. It puzzled her and she lay in darkness observing the sensation for a while occasionally hearing a plink, plink sound that she should not understand and after a very long time a tugging on her skin that burned and itched. A flash of light appeared, like looking at the sun, blinded her, dilating her pupils one at a time and vanished as quickly as it had come. It wasn't easily placed so she ignored it and sank happily back into the darkness where she didn't have to think.

The voices were loud and indignant when he next woke. He batted his eyelids and thought for a moment something had gone very wrong with his vision. The world had turned a deep shade of purple. He stared above him at the roof of a canvas tent and thought back to the nightmare he had woken from. Faust standing above Déjà performing necromancy in a cave, He shivered and turned his head to look around him better.

He lay on a cot, comfortable with a large and fresh smelling pillow behind him propping him up somewhat. A sleeping bag he recognised as well as the purple blankets that matched the tent covered him and he lifted his arms to see crisp clean sky blue sleeves in place of naked skin.

"Mosuke?" he asked and instantly the Ghost was by his side looking relieved. "You're awake finally!" he said smiling. "You had me worried my partner." He said.

Morty smiled weakly." Where are we?" He asked looking around again. Over Mosuke's shoulder he could make out the shape of the Panda ghost where he sat by another cot on which wrapped in blankets slept Déjà.

"We are back at the new camp." Mosuke said and began to explain all that had transpired between his mergence with Morty on the field of battle and this moment.

Morty felt his eyes brim with tears. "So it wasn't a dream." He said as the hope in his tone faded.

Mosuke seemed distressed yet his expression hardened as if he had steeled himself for this conversation. "No it was not. But it was necessary he did not mean to frighten you."

"She was scared when i said he was a Necromancer." Morty exmplained. Somhow he felt that he had betrayed her.

"Yes they have not got the best of reputations even in my day." Mosuke agreed.

"Do not concern yourself Young one." Krioko said from Deja's side causing the others to look up at him.

"If i had thought your friend would have harmed her further i would not have entrusted her to him. I assure you you should feel no guilt about this Morty. I will take the responsibility from the spirits around us for the betrayal of our people's beliefs." He looked into the darkness of the tent.

In the tent's mouth Morty could hear Len's voice arguing with someone else and understood immediately exactly where he was.

"WHY DO I HAVE TO SHARE MY TENT?" Len yelled

"Please master Len remain clam."

"I DO NOT SEE HOW I SHOULD HAVE TO GIVE UP MY COMFORT FOR A COMPLETE STRANGER AND MORTY? FAUST CAN TAKE CARE OF THEM EASILY IN HIS OWN TENT."

"You will wake the others Master Len." Bason's voice said anxiously.

"BE QUIET BASON!" Len flared back.

"No you be quiet!" That was Anna; Morty pushed himself up further to listen. "You're making enough noise to summon any shaman looking for us from a thousand mile radius." There was a sound like a slapping and Morty winced feeling his left cheek in sympathy.

"Faust gets your tent because it's the biggest and he has two sick people to care for. With them, their guardian ghosts and both himself and Eliza it's the only place that they will all fit and be protected from the elements and anything else. "

"But...but where am I supposed to sleep!" Len fumed holding his hand over the stinging palm mark the now covered the right hand side of his face.

"Ask someone who cares. " Anna said as she returned to her seat by the fire Lyserg was busy trying to light. The green shaman jumped slightly as she medium eyed him before returning to the fire his efforts increasing as he tried to make it burst into flame.

It appeared Len was flabbergasted he opened and closed his mouth a couple of times then frowned and muttered to himself. Yoh put a hand sympathetically on his shoulder.

"Sorry Buddy. You can always take Morty and Faust's tent since they won't be in it I guess."

The Tao shaman glanced at the little dome tent across from his own magnificent structure of canvas and sighed as he tried to keep his temper in check. By his side Bason said.

"It will not be so bad Master Len."

From the shadows of the tent a creaking sound echoed causing Morty to look around at it. Faust seemed tired as he rose in the Place Krioko had looked moments before, previously unseen, from the folding chair between his two patients. He walked quietly to the flap of the tent and threw it back his expression unreadable and his hand going into the pocket of his lab coat. He vanished into the bright light outside and the tent flap closed behind him.

After a few seconds Len's voice echoed back again a note of alarm marring his otherwise proud tones. "What are you doing? Unhand me!" he said.

"If Len wishes to remain in his tent I can easily arrange it for him." Faust said dangerously. "I assure you; you will fit right in with the others."

"Ah Faust..." Yoh's voice replied as he watched the wicked looking metal instrument the doctor loomed over Len wielding. "What exactly is that?"

Fust looked inoffensively down at the device. "It is an 1890 Tonsil Guillotine." He said.

"What...get away from me? There's nothing wrong with my tonsils." Len yelled as he scrambled away from the crazed doctor. The grip on his arm proved too tight however and he struggled in vain.

"Are you sure?" Faust said sounding slightly disappointed.

"Yes! I'm very sure seeing as I haven't got any tonsils!"

"So you won't be joining us in the purple tent?" Faust asked.

"No I will not. Now unhand me." He stared incredulously up at the other shaman who smiled cheerfully at him and pocketed the strange device again. "Oh well if you are sure." He said mischievously and sauntered off back the way he had come.

##

Morty sat still and stared at the roof of Lens tent. Three days had passed since their return and though he felt much better he was still not allowed out of his bed nor was anyone allowed in to see him for more than five minutes. On the bright side Len wasn't having a good time either. It turned out that Tent Len had held enough room for not only two low travel cots but also the chair that Faust seemed to stand guard over them in. He could easily stand up and move about which meant that he didn't have to shuffle on his knees to tend his patents.

He scowled and felt very tempted to bite down on the slim piece of glass under his tongue. He didn't however and when the gloved hands removed it he surrendered it freely enough. "Very good Morty. Almost Normal." Faust praised with a smile shaking the device before the boy got a good look at it.

"Almost normal." He groaned. "This is the longest lasting fever known to the history of the world." He fumed and crossed his arms.

"Ahhh." The doctor said encouragingly trying to poke a tongue depressor between his teeth.

"I..." he began his mind saying 'I didn't get stung in my throat Faust!' but in reality his mouth saying. " I...iahhhhk" as the tongue depressor was shoved inside and Faust turned his head from side to side to peer down his throat.

When it was removed he said. "I'm staring to think you're doing this to annoy me."

The German smiled candidly and began covering him back up with the sleeping bag and blankets. He looked worriedly across as Faust stood fluidly and moved to perform the same check up on the still unconscious form of Déjà.

##

Something massaged the sides of her neck and under her chin. She recognised the touch but could not place it, something cold and thin sneaked its way into her mouth under her tongue and she felt the same hands on her forehead. She felt warm and comfortable for the moment and was loath to give it up.

She moaned and turning in her sleep felt material run against other material. Her eyes opened and taking a minute to adjust made herself dizzy as an assault of senses came to her. The sound of the voices talking grew louder. The smells, of juniper plant used in medicines to clean wounds and burning wood smoke somewhere nearby, The taste of willow bark and wood in her mouth and Poppy seed.

She reached a hand up and froze seeing a strange clear vine attacked to the back of it connected to a tube and some white stuff that felt sticky and seemed to be keeping it in place. Frowning as her senses cleared she became aware that she was not as she had summarised already dead but lying amidst blankets on her back a dark purple cloth roof above her and an icy cold compress on her fore head.

She struggled to push herself up feeling lopsided. Her left arm was bound in a sling across her stomach which was also covered in bandages. She forced her unrestricted vine covered and sticky arm towards her teeth intent on removing the thing there. A gloved hand caught her wrist.

"Why hello there. " A softly spoken mannered voice said as a smiling, pale, blond man's face appeared directly above her connected to the hand. "So you're finally awake. How do you feel?"

"AH!" she yelled the noise hoarse in her dry throat. She tried to scramble back from him. He was standing over her and sank to his knees at the side of the cot she was on.

"Please." He said. He had dark circles under his eyes and she recognised him. ".. Try to be motionless. You are still very weak..." he placed the gloved hand out just as she managed to get herself in a sitting position in time to allow it to make contact with her forehead. "Mmm and still running a slight fever."

She gawped at him. "Wait...aren't you Morty's friend...?" she asked

He seemed genuinely delighted that she had remembered. "Very good." He said making a note on a small pad of paper by her bed. "I am Johann Faust the 8th. This is my wife...Eliza." A ghost dressed in pink materialised and smiled. "We are treating you."

"You're the one who fixed my shoulder?" she asked

"Hmm my yes you gave us quiet a fright springing up as you did. Of course Eliza caught you as you fainted. Your shoulder was jarred during your...shall we call it an escape attempt? I like to think of it as that." He smiled charmingly. "...I had to break it to re-set it again. "

"Oh...you're awake." Morty said smiling as he approached from the flap of the tent. He looked better. She glanced around noticing the large interior of the tent packed as it was with strange items she didn't know.

Morty smiled. "I would have been here when you woke but Faust sprung me this morning and I really wanted to see Yoh. Krioko has been worried sick; he's outside with the others."

"Sprung you?" she asked not quiet understanding.

"Hmm yes. Morty does not make a good patient." The man mused as he took her pulse. She looked at him questioningly as Morty gave a long suffering sigh and pulled himself to sit on the edge of her bed.

She suddenly became aware that she was dressed only in a large baggy white t-shirt, that was not her own, and a mound of blankets. Her face flooded with heat.

"Hu...whets wrong... Do you feel feverish again?" Morty asked looking concerned.

"Where are my clothes..." she whispered in response.

"Oh...they were in pretty bad condition after your fight. Anna leant you spare ones. Seeing as how we didn't want to go through your stuff. "

"Who changed me..." she said closing her eyes against the indignity.

No one spoke and Morty flushed along with her sharing her embarrassment. She knew the answer to her question even if she didn't want to. Behind her an icy cold but light pressure touched against her back under her shirt making her stiffen from her sagged slouched position of embarrassment and sit bolt upright. "Breathe deeply please..."

She half turned to look at him. "What are you doing...stop that."

He smiled a strange device attached to his ears but did not stop. Merely reached his free hand up to her shoulder to turn her to face forwards again. "Breathe deeply please." He stated again.

"He's using something called a stethoscope and listening to your lungs and heart." Morty supplied. "Faust is a doctor remember I told you about him? He's really useful to have around hahah."

Faust, the doctor, continued smiling and replacing his strange stethoscope against her back raised his eyebrows pointedly. She turned to face the way he wanted and took the deep breath he sought.

"That sounds much better." He informed her removing the device apparently unabashed.

The red haired girl blinked and looked down at her body. It seemed in one piece...in better condition than before her fight even. The ribs she had broken escaping from the pressures' when she had been split up from Reh had been bound, the cuts to her arms and legs had been cleaned and covered and the hole in her side seemed to have been sutured shut.

She laughed and they both looked up worriedly at her. And found she couldn't stop. She was not dead but alive. They had defeated one of the pressures and she had protected and found the Asakura and now the strange Faust Doctor shaman had healed her broken body.

Faust looked worried a moment and reaching a hand out to her forehead again peered at her questioningly ,his indigo eyes flashing, then at the minute stand her IV Bag was attached to. He got up and rummaged in his big black bag for a moment. He returned holding a sharp looking device which he inserted into a bottle then turned upside down and held up to the light to see better. For some reason Morty looked frightened.

"Oh don't worry Morty this isn't for you this time." The one called Faust said offhandedly squinting at the liquid.

He began cleaning a spot on the girls arm and she watched him do it carefully. He did not seem evil. She waited for something about him to leap out at her then chastised herself remembering an old saying. "Evil has many faces." She said then hissed as the sharp thing bit into her upper arm and proved how sharp it actually was. He pulled it out and smiling kindly pressed a cotton ball to the pinprick to catch the bead of blood forming there.

"I am not evil." He said looking her directly in the face. She felt his kind-heartedness and devotion and understood that he would have stopped at nothing to help her even if she was a stranger to him. She looked away unable to continue the contest of wills and unable to let go of the word Morty had slipped so innocently.

"Necromancer."


	7. Krioko Alone

Authors note: Ok! Is anyone actually reading this? Please review if you are even flames would be better than nothing.

Anyways as I promised Gemma and JeanneSama here is a list of the translations used so far that haven't been in English.

Chapter one: None

Chapter Two: "Erus" – Latin = Master

Chapter Three: "Gott sei Dank" – German = Thank goodness

"Ah sehe ich" – German = Ah I see

Chapter Four: "Quisnam es vos? Quis specialis operor vos habitum mihi?" – Latin = who are you? what secrets do you hold for me?

"Operor non permoveo quod ego mos succurro vos!/ sto tergum vos es vix him." – Latin = Do not move and I will help you. / Stand back you are scaring him.

Chapter Five: "Könnte er diesen Weg gegangen sein?" –German = Could he have gone this way?

Disclaimer: I do not Own shaman king or German or Latin or umm anything really.

**Krioko Alone.**

Krioko turned his head and watched the huge pink over soul take off holding his shaman and the boy, Morty. He sighed wondering if he had made the right decision intrusting her t the Necromancer's care.

As the gap between them grew he could feel her soul, his sense of her, grow fait. As if someone had closed the door on the sound of her 'voice'. He must have looked dejected for the samurai who he had yet to be properly introduced to frowned at him from its position flanking Yoh's left.

"Are you well?" it asked and Krioko was forced to tare his gaze away from the retreating figure to focus on the direction the large serpent spirit fusion over soul was taking them.

"Yes I am thank you." he responded dipping his head. He then looked up and a wry smile spread across his snout. "I have not been apart from my shaman for any length of time it feels somewhat...odd."

To his surprise, the samurai smiled warmly and Yoh by his side turned to pat him reassuringly. "It will not be long until we return and I assure you Faust will take good care of her while we are gone." Amidamaru told him confidently.

##

As they neared the camp, walking the last few feet towards an array of tents Krioko felt himself drawn off slightly to one side towards a blond girl who lay in the sun a can in one hand and a fan in the other. He frowned at her so familiar and yet alien to him.

"So you're back. It's about time." She said without sitting up or removing her sunglasses as the shaman approached her. "Don't you know how rude it is to keep a lady waiting?"

Yoh mumbled something about an apology while Trey looking furious said. "Don't you even want to know if we found Morty?"

Anna sighed and sat up. "If you hadn't found Morty you would still be gone, seeing as how you are back and Yoh seems perfectly calm again I assume you did find him. I sensed some huge furkyoku discharges earlier so that leads me to think that he's gotten himself into trouble and is currently with Faust and you lot are here to pack up camp and move us someplace safer."

She sipped the last of her soda and threw it into the ice box behind her empty. "And who is that?" she added pointing at Krioko.

"His name's Krioko he's the spirit ally of a girl we met. She rescued Morty." Yoh said turning to look at the panda.

Anna slowly stood and cautiously walked her way around the panda that stood stock still his shoulder quivering slightly. "Huh." Anna finally said "You don't look overly threatening."

Krioko laughed a deep rumbling sound within his chest. "Well met indeed Lady Anna it is a pleasure."

The medium's lip twitched slightly in a smile that was gone as quick as it had come. With a flick of her wrist, she was holding her beads and a stern expression "You're shielding your mind from me. Why?"

The others froze mid pack up and stared at the two Yoh looking worriedly between them. The panda stared down at her calmly.

"I do so not to deceive you but to protect my shaman. It is not my place to expose us when we are not sure that you are not hostile."

"Yet you left her with Faust." Anna challenged.

" I did so because part of our mission if you like was to track down and help protect the boy known as Yoh Asakura. " Anna's pupils constricted slightly and Yoh frowned.

"Yeah Déjà mentioned something about that didn't she."

"She did yes." He admitted. "Before she passed out."

"My Yoh doesn't need any protection he can fight his own battles and he can win them. He's the future shaman king. How do we know you're not the hostile ones and you're not trying to simply bump off the competition to make your girl shaman queen instead of me?"

Krioko frowned. "I cannot speak of my intentions without Déjà and we would do well not to linger here any longer. To answer your question I am afraid Lady Anna that you cannot we shall just have to trust one another for now."

They looked at one another as the seconds tricked by then Anna quirked an eyebrow. "Fine...but I'm not pulling extra spirit weight about you'll just have to help out like the others." She went to pack up her things then leaving him standing with Yoh and Amidamaru.

"Come on sweetie-pie." She called back to Yoh who hurriedly, with an apologetic look at Krioko, joined his fiancé.

##

Packing the camp had taken no time at all setting it up on the other had seemed to take forever. Lyserg sighed to himself and walked further afield for fire wood. It was very difficult despite the fact they had put past differences to bed for him to remain around his friends for too long without feeling frustrated.

He bent to pick up another stick and add it to the growing stack in his arm. It was a big change he reasoned, from spending so long by himself to then being an X-Law surrounded by adults who did not throw pudding at one another as Joco and trey were so fond of doing. Perhaps he had been too mature for too long. Part of him reasoned with this idea and the lack of logic in it all but if being with Yoh had taught him anything it was that sometimes the best way to live your life is loosely and let fate take you on your way and enjoy the ride. He sighed again. On his shoulder, a pink swirling materialised as a tiny fairy that looked confusedly at him.

"Ooo?" Chloe asked putting her hand on his cheek. He smiled at her. "Don't worry Chloe I'll be fine."

It wasn't so bad being with the guys all the time, somewhere inside he revelled in it. Behind them Trey and Joco were unpacking the tent while he fetched fire wood and Yoh and Len ensured that any tracks they had made leading there were taken care of.

He could hear Trey yelling something indignantly and knew at once Joco had told some kind of joke, most likely about the erection of tents. He smiled shaking his head as the words drifted towards him down the rocky surroundings to the edge of the Forrest where he stood. He started the trek back up to the camp.

"Come on Chloe, someone sensible should be there to stop that happening whatever that is." He joked smiling at his guardian ghost. It was not exactly a bad place to camp, Lenny had been right about that Lyserg observed as he crossed the threshold and made a beeline for the empty ring where the fire should go.

Allowing the wood to tumble from his arms he looked around him again. While it was more compact here than down in the desert it was more sheltered and there were three easy ways of escaping. Up the mountain trail back around and down the more treacherous climb to the desert or off towards the edge of the Forrest in the direction he had just come from.

Nearby a stream gurgled. Three large collapsible bags of water stood by Rio's camp table and He sighed and felt his own face fall as both he and Chloe watched Togageroh cut carrots and add them to the pot of cold spring water - stew again, it was becoming tiresome. He longed for a town and something else than porridge for breakfast, soup for lunch and stew and rice for dinner. Anything else would be better. Despite his brain being repulsed by the stew his stomach happily anticipated its hot salty sates and growled. Lyserg placed a hand on it and smiled ruefully to himself. Chloe danced happily before him as he focused and began stacking the firewood into a pyramid. He had been careful to find dry wood so that they could have the fire and not attract any unwanted attention.

Joco and Trey it seemed had settled their dispute by themselves. The curly haired shaman now sported a large lump on the back of his head and the pair of them were busy erecting the rest of the small dome tents in a slightly crushed circle, the majority of the room being taken up by Lens huge purple monstrosity.

Some minutes later he paused in his reorganisation of the fire to watch the small procession from the mountain cave as they entered camp and one by one vanished into the purple tent. Rio carrying Morty. Faust and Eliza carrying that new girl. Anna followed talking to the Panda ghost.

Straining his ears Lyserg heard Faust say from the cavernous insides. "Yes Anna you are quiet right this will do nicely. And both these camp cots will be perfect. Rio please put Morty on that one Eliza and I will make sure they are both comfortable."

Len was not going to like that he decided. He frowned but said nothing his arguments, mirrored by Len, on how dangerous it was to take unwanted and unknown shaman into their group had been shot down by Yoh who had responded simply with a " Well we brought you into the group and that worked out ok in the end didn't it?" and a grin.

Yes, he supposed it had worked out ok in the end but still, that nagging part of him considered the logic behind being too mature again. Dusting his hands off Lyserg stood and went to get more firewood.

##

Krioko sat by Déjà's side watching her intently his eyes soulful and concerned. After much debate, it had been agreed that the camp would move here and stay here until such a time as Faust deemed Morty and Déjà well enough to travel on again. He was quietly happy about this.

Déjà moaned slightly in her sleep and turned her head. Instantly his train of thought broken he was focused on her, drinking in every tiny twitch of her muscles.

"It's all right. She is dreaming." Faust's voice said from behind him. He turned his head slightly arching his neck and followed the blonde-haired person's procession from chair to cot, shifting aside slightly to allow him room to kneel down.

Gently the necromancer placed the palm of his hand over Déjà's forehead as the other hand took her wrist. He frowned for a split second before his expression returned neutral.

"What is it?" Krioko growled at him as the man kept his hands in place and looked over at the Ghost of the woman that seemed to be joined with him. Eliza he thought he had heard her called.

"Do not be alarmed." Faust replied as through some unspoken point of communication he passed a message on to Eliza. Krioko turned then to watch the woman as she carefully draped a cool cloth over Morty's forehead and picking up a small jug filled another bowl with water. She brought it over and handed it to Faust before returning to her charge.

Krioko watched her quietly for a moment then turned back. Faust's eyes were on him, bright and intelligent they bored into the blackness of the Panda's as both shaman and ghost considered on another. The man broke contact first, he rung out a cloth and placed the compress over Déjà's forehead.

"She has a fever." He explained. "It is not uncommon after exhausting oneself physically and of Furyoku. "

Krioko hummed deep in his throat and felt the doctor's eyes on him again. He could feel the expectancy push at him and considered. After a few moments, he felt the need to say something and yet, what was comforting and explained? Nothing. Instead, he settled for saying.

"You are not liked amongst her people namely for your art. They deem it and its users as those fallen to evil and not to be trusted under any circumstance."

"Yet you trust me." It wasn't so much a question as a statement of fact as the doctor busied himself wringing out the cloth and putting it over Déjà's forehead again.

"I am not as naive and do not follow one cultures customs as if they were universal laws. I have been around too long for such blinkers. It is not a question of trust. I merely do not see you as a threat because you are a necromancer but rather because you are powerful." He paused as the girl moaned slightly in her sleep and tried to turn over. Faust gently prevented her for fear of her stitches bursting and after frowning in her unconsciousness her face relaxed and she lay still.

Krioko watched her intently as he continued. "I see you as an ally because you are powerful but also because you are a doctor and because my partner would be dead if not from your ministrations." Krioko removed his gaze from Déjà to Faust who was now sitting on the edge of the girls Cot. "It is also for those reasons that I thank you."

The blonde smiled slightly his eyes closed and his face warm and friendly. "No problem. "

He paused and the Panda looked expectantly up at him. "I feel that I must say however that it was dangerous for you both to have left it so long to have those injuries tended. The burns seem to have healed without much scarring but the broken ribs... they had set incorrectly and the fight caused a small fragment of bone to puncture the lung." He said softly looking at the girl.

Krioko considered him. "Déjà is strong willed and determined there was little I could do, but I accept your cautionary warnings on behalf of both of us. " Faust nodded, satisfied, before he whipped his head around to look at Morty then back at Déjà as both gave a long shuddering sigh almost simultaneously.

Both patients seemed to relax more and the tense air in the tent began to ebb slowly. Krioko watched Faust with mild interest where he perched on the end of Déjà's cot. The fingers in his right hand twitching as though he were poised to spring to the aid of either boy or girl should they need it.

"...you are developing a connection with my shaman." His tone seemed to take on a slightly more light quality as if he found it endearing. He nodded his head towards Eliza and Morty. "As you did with the young one. A by product of your use of necromancy on both?"

The panda watched him for a reaction and got nothing more than a slight look of shock then a considerate wariness. Finally, with an insignificant bob of the head Faust relented.

"I regret my actions with Morty, I was not myself then, not wholly sane... and I have spent the time since atoning for my sin by trying to keep the others and especially him safe. He is very delicate. "

What a strange odd man Krioko thought watching him. He could sense the rolling waves of sorrow for his actions, he really was such a kind spirit and yet still he felt compelled to press him. "I doubt Déjà will take kindly to your actions should she learn of them. She is a private person and will not be as trusting of you."

He let that hang in the air a moment as the doctor busied himself checking the dressing and sutures to the wound in her side. "With Déjà I had no other option. I had to operate immediately and there was no time to wait for equipment. I had to apply my necromancy skills with my medical knowledge." He sighed.

"I assure you I did not anticipate how much of her suffering and personality I would glean from doing so. It appears that she, like Morty, it seems has a soul compatible with my own. But if you fear for your privacy I will not reveal her to the others if she does not wish to do so herself." He said firmly.

"You will then betray the trust of the Asakura?"

"I would never betray Yoh!" Faust Hissed through his teeth. "He and Anna returned my beloved to me I belong with them and I will fight for him until my very last breath."

He turned his gaze, sharp and foreboding to the spirit beside him. Krioko watched with concealed interest behind his stoic eyes and muzzle as he glimpsed a small part of the insanity within Faust.

"But for you to dare insinuate that protecting the interests of my patient is a betrayal...you go too far!" Truly, Faust's anger was a spectacle to behold, in that instant Krioko read enough to settle in his mind his opinion of the young doctor.

His soul was bright and he loved so passionately that his anger and hate were almost a sheer force, it was wise, Krioko concluded to be his ally or indifferent and suckle on the milk of human kindness than to be his enemy.

"You see Much Faust-Ue I am impressed. Forgive me i should not discount your strength of character. "

Immediately Eliza was at their side her hand on his face. He looked at her, his eyes cooled and his hand clasped hers. The mask of peace settled back on him as if some unknown creature within him had submerged itself once more. He nodded indicating he had forgiven the moment and his eyes fell on Deja again.

"She seems to be healing well and there is no sign of infection Eliza and I will keep an eye on the fever."

"Thank you." Krioko said calmly and watched as he followed Eliza to check on Morty.

Yes, it was better to be his Ally than his enemy Faust. However, where, he wondered, would Déjà place herself? He would not be openly hostile to her but the milk of human kindness and one mans patience could only last so long.

##

Some hours later Krioko paced slightly around the tent talking in intervals with Mosuke and Faust as they waited for Yoh and Len to return with a field report or their respective shaman to wake. Eliza had gone off to talk with Anna on Faust's request minutes before.

"You will tire yourself with the pacing. " Faust said from his chair in the shadows of the tent.

Krioko paused "I am dead I will not tire myself but I thank you for your concern."

Behind him Mosuke wrung his hands and fingered a spirit hammer, betraying his tension. Regardless the Panda sank to his haunches and Looked at the necromancer who smiled warmly in return.

"You seem tired, perhaps you should sleep." Krioko said quietly.

"I do not require much sleep." Morty made a small mumbling sound causing Faust to sit up slightly to look at him. Outside talking grew louder.

"Mosuke?" the boy asked and instantly the Ghost was by his side looking relieved. "You're awake finally!" he said smiling. "You had me worried my partner."

Where are we?" Krioko heard him ask, his voice sounded weak and unsure.

"We are back at the new camp." Mosuke said and in a hushed voice explained all that had befallen them from battle field to tent He spoke for some minutes as the talking outside got louder Krioko frowned and quirked his ears.

"So it wasn't a dream." Morty was muttering sadly. They had prepared for this eventuality and just as they had rehearsed, Mosuke responded.

"No it was not. But it was necessary he did not mean to frighten you."

"She was scared when I said he was a Necromancer." Morty seemed defiant to get this point across as if he had failed to protect his new friend. He was deviating from the rehearsed script and Krioko could see Mosuke peripherally stop to consider forgetting he was supposed to be assuring the boy that Faust did the right thing.

"Yes they have not got the best of reputations even in my day." Mosuke finally said causing the Panda to glance at Faust who looked expressionless then add.

"Do not concern yourself Young one." He did not turn to face the boy. "If I had thought your friend would have harmed her further I would not have entrusted her to him. I assure you, you should feel no guilt about this Morty. I will take the responsibility from the spirits around us for the betrayal of our people's beliefs." He looked at Faust again in time to see the little quirk of the necromancer's lips.

The voices were shouting now like a gunshot ripping through the once peaceful air. Krioko pressed his ears flat and growled.

"WHY DO I HAVE TO SHARE MY TENT?" Len yelled

"Please master Len remain clam." Bason interjected.

"I DO NOT SEE HOW I SHOULD HAVE TO GIVE UP MY COMFORT FOR A COMPLETE STRANGER AND MORTY? FAUST CAN TAKE CARE OF THEM EASILY IN HIS OWN TENT."

Krioko growled again and padded out of the tent. He approached the small group of shaman; Len stood facing off against Anna who had her arms crossed. Yoh hovering between them was grinning awkwardly and waving his hands trying to diffuse the situation it seemed with no luck.

Bason saw Krioko and blinked in his spirit flame mode apologetically as he tried to reason with his shaman "You will wake the others Master Len." He said anxiously.

"BE QUIET BASON!" Len flared back.

Into the camp walked Lyserg with an armful of branches. He seemed satisfied by something and continued to his almost complete fire. Dumping the branches he began checking if they had enough for the night.

Krioko growled as he came to a halt by Yoh. Len turned to look at him as Anna took her chance at a rebuttal.

"No you be quiet!" she fumed in her normal tone of voice each syllable emphasising out of the two who was in charge."You're making enough noise to summon any shaman looking for us from a thousand mile radius."

Len frowned and brandished his Kwando at Krioko in indignation his mouth opened to continue the argument. It skimmed close to Yoh, the Panda growling earnestly now when Anna's hand like a rocket unfolded itself and struck Len hard against the face. There was silence for a second, then two.

"Faust gets your tent because it's the biggest and he has two sick people to care for. With them, their guardian ghosts and both himself and Eliza it's the only place that they will all fit and be protected from the elements and anything else. "She crossed her arms again and waited as if daring him to challenge her again.

"But...but where am I supposed to sleep!" Len fumed holding his hand over the stinging palm mark the now covered the right hand side of his face.

"Ask someone who cares." Anna said as she returned to her seat by the fire Lyserg was busy trying to light. Yoh continued to diffuse the situation as Krioko padded back towards the tent. His irritation increased as he entered and noted the lines that crossed Déjà's forehead even under the compress.

So much like his father Len Tao, Krioko mused as gently he pushed his nose into the hand that hung off the side of the bed. He could not feel her heart pump blood through her veins in his current form but he could sense it. The shouting had apparently touched something in her unconscious state and her heart rate was reacting as a result. He looked around at Faust again concerned.

The doctor frowned and looked across at Morty who seemed enthralled by the voices outside. He pushed himself up and put his index and middle fingers into Déjà's neck. His frown became a scowl. Quietly he walked to the Tent's entrance, Morty having just noticed his presence following him with wide eyes.

The German threw back the tent flap and exited into the afternoon sunlight his hand pulling something Krioko could just make out a silver metal instrument from the pocket in the voluptuous lab coat he wore. The tent flap closed behind him.

Faust waited a second or so for his eyes to adjust to the light and then walked towards Len, the source of the disturbance. His long legs carried him towards the boy quickly and before the younger shaman was aware of the coming danger he had seized him by the upper arm and turned him into a closer embrace.

Len spun into the force tugging him and attempted to wrench his arm from his assailants grip. He paled slightly when he saw who t was who held him. Odd, Faust considered tilting his head at the reaction.

"What are you doing? Unhand me!" Len said.

Putting the mystery to one side for now Faust pulled the trigger on his ' Designed to scare loudmouthed people' surgical tool It clacked wickedly an exceptionally fortunate glow of the newly lit fire and setting sun tinting the edges a nice red glint. "If Len wishes to remain in his tent I can easily arrange it for him." He said allowing the hint of annoyance and danger to creep into his tone "I assure you." he added a sly smile playing on his lips. "...you will fit right in with the others."

"Ah Faust..." Yoh asked worriedly taking a step back from the pair as Both Anna and Eliza looked up the latter rolling her eyes and shaking her head slightly, as a mother would when her offspring was doing something slightly mischievous."What exactly is that?"

Fust looked inoffensively down at the device. His expression and tone returning to placid good natured Faust not irritated psycho doctor. "It is an 1890 Tonsil Guillotine." He said.

Len's arm stiffened at the word tonsil guillotine and he pushed against Faust. "What...get away from me!" he demanded his breathing becoming ever so slightly erratic. Faust watched him with interest. "There's nothing wrong with my tonsils." He said haughtily.

"Are you sure?" Faust said sounding slightly disappointed as he kept the boy in place.

"Yes! I'm very sure seeing as I haven't got any tonsils!" His eyes flickered once to Bason then back as he pushed away again squirming his arm trying to free it.

"So you won't be joining us in the purple tent?" Faust asked innocently.

"No I will not. Now unhand me." He stared incredulously up at the other shaman who smiled cheerfully at him and pocketed the strange device again. Score one for reverse psychology Faust thought.

"Oh well if you are sure." He said mischievously and sauntered off back the way he had come. The poor boy rubbed his arm as it the necromancers grip had burned him.

"Master Len you do have..." Bason started.

"Quiet Bason..." Len said clamping a hand over the ghost's mouth and frowning at Eliza who looked innocently back.

Faust chuckled darkly to himself as the tent flap closed.

##

It was early Morning of the fourth day when Faust finally released Morty from the 'Sick Tent' as he had come to think of it. The small shaman pushed his way out from under the purple flap using one hand to keep it out of his way and the other to zip up his hoodie.

He glanced around him once then made a bee-line directly for Yoh. The brunet shaman was sitting by the fire with Amidamaru and Mosuke on one side and Krioko on the other. Anna sat close by a bowl of porridge in her hand and the spoon in her mouth.

As he passed Len, he heard the Chinese shaman huff to Bason and rub his neck. A bottle of milk half drunk clutched in his hand. They both stopped whatever they had been speaking about as he neared them and He smiled sheepishly not wanting them to think he had been eaves dropping.

"I'm sorry about your tent Len. I hope mine hasn't been too uncomfortable for you."

Len frowned slightly at him and then played with the straw in his milk "It was not to the standard I am used to but I suppose it was all right." He uncharacteristically smiled at Morty who raised his eyebrows in return.

"I'm glad. Aren't you going to drink that?" he said

Len considered it. "Yes it's just out of the chiller box so it's too cold right now it hurts my...Teeth. I have very sensitive teeth you know. " Len blushed.

"Err...right ok." Morty replied and chuckling nervously walked closer to Yoh. "Hey!" he said as he reached the odd group.

Yoh looked up and beamed. "Morty!" his expression sobered and he looked around him quickly. "Does Faust know you're out here!" he whispered conspiratorially causing the smaller Shaman to chuckle and nod.

"He said since I'm feeling better I could go but that he would be checking up on me." The small boy frowned slightly as if this was a deal he knew he would soon be regretting. Yoh patted him on the back as Lyserg lowered himself down by them and offered Morty a bowl.

"That's great news. You had us worried buddy."

"Yes." Amidamaru agreed and laughed as he materialised. "I do not think I have seen Mosuke Look so green or worried since our boat ride back in 1399."

Mosuke appeared looking annoyed. "That is not a fair comparison, I was concerned for my shaman and if you remember I spent the hour before that trip eating at the festival. I had consumed too much sake and was not to know the sea was angry."

The samurai laughed. "Yes I recall now you were very sick."

"You would have been just as worried! It was a horrific fate to befall poor Morty! How dare you snigger at such hardship for shame Amidamaru!" and the pair continued their argument as their shaman laughed good-naturedly and changed topics.

"I'm sorry for worrying you guys." Morty said as he took the bowl from Lyserg.

The English shaman hummed to himself then voiced something that, by his tone, had clearly been on his mind. "I'm glad you are ok Morty but I don't know if I quiet trust your friend."

Yoh frowned and shook his head as Len joined them. "Yes I agree with Lyserg. As I've already told you Yoh. We know nothing about the girl. Where did she come from?" He asked looking at Morty.

The small shaman shrugged. "I don't know. It's all a bit confusing and muddled. She was looking down on me after Mosuke left and jumped down I think, then the scorpion bit me and I think...I think she was digging me out, she had a knife."

"She used a knife to dig you out? How strange." Rio said sitting himself down with a bowl. Joco and Trey joined them.

"You got up high dude. I wonder how she was even able to get you so far across the desert like that before she ran into the goons."

"There's a point." Joco said. "From what it looked like when we got there it seemed like she was running with you and Faust and Yoh were following. They were a good distance ahead of us but you guys were ahead of them I don't even see how it's that possible to run as fast as she was going."

"I uhh...I don't remember, I woke up at the river again." Morty said he felt uncomfortable being surrounded by probing questions. With a small huff he let the air out of his lungs in exasperation. Maybe he should have stayed with Faust.

"Its obvious really isn't it." Anna asked. Causing attention to flicker to her. "She was in spirit unity while she was running."She glanced once at Krioko who growled an affirmative.

"Yeah but why was she running?" Lyserg pressed. "It's almost like she was taking Morty to those guys."

"Yeah." Joco agreed as bickering between the group started on the likelihood of this.

"No!" Morty yelled loudly. Krioko stared at him questioningly, the conversation stopped short and Faust's head appeared though the tent flap. Morty blushed.

"Not over exerting ourselves are we?" Faust's sing song like voice asked causing both Morty and Lens spines to straighten.

"No." He said back quieter this time.

"Good. Can you try to keep it down in that case, Eliza and I are trying to do an examination and it is very distracting." His head retracted

Morty returned to the conversation at hand. "No, she wasn't taking me to those guys. She was worried that the venom from the scorpion was going to kill me and that she hadn't managed to save me in time and she was taking me to find help. To find a doctor, I told her about you guys and Faust and she promised to help me find you when those three showed up." He explained.

"That's convenient." Lyserg added sceptically.

Morty frowned and looked in turn at each of his friends. "What's with you guys? Déjà saved my life she's my friend why are you acting like she's the reincarnation of Zeke or something."

"Hardly." Len scoffed. "From what I was able to disconcert she's at best a mediocre shaman. "

Krioko growled from his position by Anna causing the Chinese shaman to look at him.

"If you think I am wrong then answer me this how come I was able to defeat those goon easily where she failed? If not for me she would be shark bait." He smirked and sipped his milk. "By the way while we're on this line of conversation Asakura I fail to see how they presented a problem to you."

Yoh chuckled and scratched his head. "They were actually really powerful Len you just came in at the end of the battle Déjà had weakened that shark guy a great deal before you got there."

"Yes." Rio agreed. "And we had the element of surprise on our side it is not something to be sneered at in battle I think. "

Krioko growled slightly. "His name was Kaolin and while Yoh is correct Len also has a point. The creatures you faced were not merely shaman with their own furkyoku but shaman utilising more power than their bodies alone could ever hope to hold."

Len frowned at the Panda. "Stop speaking in riddles. If you know so much why won't you tell us?"

Before the panda could respond Anna cut in " Because it's not his place to give us all of the information it's Déjà's and seeing how she's unconscious right now its probably not going to happen any time soon."

Len frowned and crossed his arms as Lyserg copied his expression. "Well maybe we should wake her up and get her to tell us what's going on. If there re more people like that out there I don't think it's something that we should be kept in the dark about."

"Nor will you be. " Krioko said calmly. "I assure you Déjà and I mean no harm to you but we come with a heavy load and she will explain everything in due time."

"Besides." Rio interrupted "Faust is not going to like it if we go barging into that tent and demand to wake her she's probably not going to last well under direct questioning anyway."

"Morty seems fine." Trey said pointing his spoon covered in oats at the boy who scowled.

"I'm getting sick of petty arguments. Allow me to settle this." Anna said putting her spoon into her bowl. She turned her head to the direction of the purple tent. "Faust!" she called.

A second passed before the blonde appeared in the tent flap wearing a stethoscope, which he pulled out of his ears, and left hanging from his neck. His tone turned respectful but hinted on exasperation, as if he wanted to say 'What now?' instead of "Yes Miss Anna?"

"Is Déjà well enough for us to question?"

The necromancer frowned seeming bemused. "Right now she's still unconscious Miss Anna."

"And would you wake her for us to question?" she asked placidly as if enquiring no more from Faust than his opinion on the weather.

His bemusement faded like melting ice. "No I certainly would not. Who would suggest such a thing?" Faust demanded frowning sternly at the backs of the assembled Shaman. His eyes lingered on Len, who visibly stiffened once again, for a second then with a shake of his head he vanished back inside the tent.

With a slight shake, Len recovered "yes well." He began, clearing his throat. "If we cannot get the information from her I say let's get it from him. Make him talk." Len said pointing his Kwando at Krioko.

Morty covered his ears as the growling reached an almost roar like level the ghost panda's muzzle drawn back and his long canine teeth exposed. Could panda's even roar?

"DO not test me Tao Len for I am not simply one of these feeble ghosts of the ether you may take and bend to your whim. I was a guardian spirit before your ghosts were even conceived in their mothers' wombs and birthed into their first lives. If you will not take my assurances then heed me on this at least my shaman may be a fledgling but I am not."

"Whoa there...ok guys I think this has gone far enough. Len put away the Kwando, Krioko relax you're amongst friends here we wont do anything to you or Déjà until we've heard you guys out. "Yoh said looking between the two.

Len fumed but reluctantly sat down again. "Hmm, sometimes your annoying fascination with diplomacy bothers even me Yoh. Fine, I'll wait. But challenge me again Panda and I will ensure you are stuffed and sent home as a birthday gift for my sister."

Krioko huffed air through his snout and padded to sit by Morty. As conversation broke out again Anna turned to him. "That was unfortunate. For such an old spirit you let your temper get the better of you easily."

The bear considered her and her neutral expression. "I apologise you are correct. I am concerned for my shaman and I do not like to hide myself from those who we seek to ally ourselves with it is like circles within circles."

"I have found when dealing with shaman that it often is like that." Anna said slowly playing with her spoon.

Morty huffed. "I don't care what the rest of the guys say, I'm with Déjà and Krioko they are good guys."

Krioko smiled and placed a paw over the boy's leg. "I would caution you from casting your fate with us until you've heard our story young one." The others paused to listen as he continued. "We are not your enemy as I have said but we are not a good omen either."

##

Slowly the morning progressed into afternoon and the slight chill that had hung on the air began to dissipate with the suns progress into the high noon position. The sky remained blue where they were but in the distance, a smudge of black on the edge of the horizon threatened rain. The air was charged Krioko could feel the impulses of the sky pull his fur straight, thunder.

He frowned off into the distance his soulful eyes filled with concern and longing for his companion. Nearly four days Déjà had been unconscious, he had not quiet perceived that she was as badly injured as she had turned out to be. He turned his head and watched Morty laugh with Yoh and choke on the soda he was drinking.

The little guy seemed to be whole again, even if he was still rather pale. His presence lightened the mood; even Anna was smiling The Panda considered the small boy.

Because of the way he had been joined with her, he was privy to more information about his shaman than most guardians and had shared Déjà's thoughts, her feelings and her memories- the most prominent of which was the face of this boy.

He had appeared in her vision during their flight, spurring her on to find who he was and what he held for her fate, despite his constant reminders that they must find Yoh and gain his alliance.

For just as the clouds grew dark in the distance before them he could sense another storm brewing behind and knew that despite Déjà's skill and power that alone she would be broken and tossed aside like a brittle piece of bamboo. The alliance with Yoh and his friends was important, they were powerful, they had put an end to the island clans greatest fear and if anyone could stop the rising tide of these imbibo os navitas...these drinker s of energy, stealers of furkyoku, he knew it would be them. Yet even now he felt deep inside that Morty, small...unsure of himself and his new found powers had some important part to play, what he knew not.

Krioko huffed air from his snout and standing padded towards the purple tent, his thoughts and longing for her driving him to check on her again for the third time in the last hour. She was growing more and more restless in her sleep which was causing the necromancer some concern. Though the man never said anything to the effect , and continued to smile and reassure the worry could not be wiped from his Wife's face.

Sure enough as he pushed, his head into the flap of the tent Eliza stood busy fixing another of those strange smelling bags to the small stand at Déjà's bedside, while Faust listened to her lungs again using his strange device.

Krioko frowned not that he did not trust modern medicine, but the strange smelling liquid bothered him. He had asked its usage and understood its importance but in truth, he failed to see why the time-tested use of tea and herbs that Déjà had always been treated by could not be just as effective here.

He had even gone down with the green haired boy Lyserg to the edge of the mountain rage where it dipped into the forest in search of some herbs and brought them back. Yet still Faust was insistent on his liquid bags. He huffed again.

Faust hearing him turned and smiled reassuringly as he removed the stethoscope from his ears. To Krioko's surprise Eliza smiled too this time. "My apologies I did not mean to disrupt you at work Faust." The panda said dipping his head.

Faust blinked in surprise then his eyes softened. "Not at all, her breathing is still a little shallow but I think we're over the worst of it." He said going from happy go lucky to stern. "Once the fever breaks and she regains consciousness I will rest easier."

"Will we be able to move then?" Krioko asked. The man tilted his head considering.

"No. If she wakes today, I might be coerced into allowing her to move around for long enough to relocate tomorrow but no sooner. She will be terribly weak for a couple of days yet as her Furkyoku returns."

The panda nodded his huge head. "I understand." He growled and cocked his ears as Anna's voice called to him. "Please keep me informed on her progress." He withdrew his head.

The campers sat together like an old war council Krioko decided, it was strange in a way that it reminded him of home. He closed his eyes as he stood and sniffed the burning smell of wood, heard the bubble of the river nearby and voices, the sound of nature. He could very easily believe that they were back on Avalon, back long before this mess had begun...


End file.
